Feb. 19, 2005
EAST MEADOW, N.Y. – A final-day session of preliminaries that saw all 15 Irish swimmers advance to the evening finals has made it a mathematical certainty that the 22nd-ranked University of Notre Dame men’s swimming and diving team will win its first-ever title at the BIG EAST Championships on Saturday evening. The Irish, who lead by 120.5 points over eight-time defending champion Pittsburgh with just six events remaining, led all schools in qualifiers again, including taking up half of the eight spots in the 200-yard butterfly, as well as three each in the 200 backstroke and 200 breaststroke.
Notre Dame will have a total of 20 individual swims on Saturday evening, while the Panthers will have just 12. In the four events that had morning preliminaries, the Irish advanced a total of 11 competitors to the championship finals, while the other four will swim in the consolation finals. Notre Dame also will have five entrants in the timed finals of the 1,650-yard freestyle. Pittsburgh earned just six combined swims in the four events with prelims, and it will have six more entries in the 1,650. The Panthers had just one swimmer among the top 16 in three of the four events on Saturday morning, while they will have one participant in the championship final and two in the consolation final in the other race (200 breaststroke).
The Irish depth that dominated the meet was nowhere more evident than in Saturday morning’s 200 butterfly prelims, which saw Notre Dame post four of the top eight qualifying marks. Leading that charge was sophomore Ted Brown (Kokomo, Ind./Western H.S.), who qualified fourth and became just the fourth Irish swimmer ever to break 1:50.00 in the event, turning in a career-best mark of 1:49.93, the sixth-best time in school history. He did not swim the race in last year’s BIG EAST meet.
Sophomore Tim Kegelman (Yorktown, Va./Tabb H.S.), the University record holder and ninth-place finisher in 2004, qualified fifth with a time of 1:50.27 that is the 10th-quickest in Notre Dame history. He will be seeking his third individual title of the meet after becoming the first Irish student-athlete ever to win a pair of BIG EAST championships in the same year, with first-place finishes in both the 200 individual medley and the 100 butterfly. He will face stiff competition in the final, including another double winner, Sean Smith of Rutgers, who is the 2005 conference champ in the 500 free and the 400 individual medley. Smith was the third qualifier with a time of 1:49.63, while West Virginia freshman Pablo Marmolejo (1:49.48) and Tyler Clark of Rutgers (1:49.56) turned in the top marks.
Irish senior captain Matt Bertke (Edgewood, Ky./Covington Catholic H.S.) – swimming the 200 fly in the BIG EAST meet for the first time in his career – was right behind Kegelman with a career-best performance of 1:50.53 that establishes him as the sixth-fastest Irish swimmer ever in the race. Junior Patrick Heffernan (Norcross, Ga./Norcross H.S.) rounded out the championship final – his second time in the race in three years – with a career best of his own, a 1:50.79 that ranked eighth and moved him up to seventh on the Irish all-time list of top performers.
Notre Dame almost duplicated the feat of taking half of the championship final spots in the 200 backstroke. Junior Doug Bauman (Erie, Pa./Cathedral Preparatory School), the University record holder, qualified second with a time of 1:49.00 that is the fifth-fastest in Notre Dame history. He was the runner-up in 2004 to Pittsburgh’s Jeff Leath, who was the top qualifier in 1:48.70. Junior Steve Shomberger (Spotsylvania, Va./Courtland H.S.) – fourth in 2004 in the race – qualified fourth with the seventh-fastest time in Irish history, a 1:49.13. Sophomore Alan Carter (Bethel Park, Pa./Bethel H.S.) became just the fourth Notre Dame competitor ever to break 1:50.00 in the race, posting a career-best time of 1:49.81 that placed him sixth in prelims. He was 10th in last year’s event. Sophomore Brian Freeman (Sanger, Calif./Immanuel H.S.) just missed the championship final with a ninth-place finish in a time of 1:52.10. He will try to improve upon his 11th-place result in 2004.
The Irish also placed three in the championship final of the 200 breaststroke. Junior Tyler Grenda (Hockessin, Del./Salesianum H.S.), who was fifth at last year’s meet, just missed a career-best time, qualifying third in 2:02.66. Junior Jamie Lutkus (Granger, Ind./Penn H.S.) was fourth with a time of 2:04.51 to earn his first career trip to the championship final. Senior David Moisan (Fisherville, Ky./Louisville Male H.S.) completed the top eight with a time of 2:05.40 for his second berth in the top conference final.
Senior Frank Krakowski (Erie, Pa./Cathedral Preparatory School) was Notre Dame’s lone championship-final qualifier in the 100 freestyle, coming in sixth with a season-best time of 45.38 that is tied for the seventh-fastest mark in school history. His top career finish in the race was seventh in 2003. Sophomore Louis Cavadini (South Bend, Ind./Riley H.S.) just missed a spot in the top eight, coming in .10 seconds behind Abed Kaaki of Connecticut to finish ninth with a career-best time of 45.62 that makes him the fifth-fastest Irish swimmer in history. Sophomore Nick Fanslau (Lansdale, Pa./North Penn H.S.) broke 46.00 for the first time in his career, qualifying 11th with a time of 45.86 that has him ranked eighth among all-time Irish swimmers in the race. Junior Tim Randolph (Crown Point, Ind./Merrillville H.S.) ended up 13th with a time of 46.00, earning his first career evening swim in the race.
The title will be the seventh conference championship in 21 years since giving up its independent status. The previous six all came in the Midwestern Collegiate Conference (now the Horizon League), in 1986 and from ’88-92. Notre Dame joined the BIG EAST in 1995-96 and had finished second on three occasions (1999, 2000, 2004) in its championship meet.
The men’s swimming and diving program will become the 16th of Notre Dame’s 20 varsity BIG EAST sports to have won a league title in the 10 years since the school became a member. The only Irish teams still seeking a first championship are men’s basketball, women’s basketball, women’s lacrosse, and women’s outdoor track and field.
Pittsburgh’s streak of eight consecutive titles still stands as one of the most impressive streaks in conference history in any sport. There have been only three longer strings of consecutive championships, though the Irish women’s swimming and diving team could add to that number tonight, if it can parlay its 104-point lead with seven events remaining and meet-high 20 individual swims in the final session into a ninth consecutive championship.
This will mark just the fourth time since the University of Pittsburgh joined the BIG EAST Conference in 1982-83 that it will not be the league’s men’s swimming and diving champions. Other winners over that span were Villanova in 1993, Miami in 1995, and Syracuse in 1996.
The final session of the meet will begin at 4:00 p.m. (EST) with heats of the 1,650 freestyle and will kick into high gear at 6 p.m. On the agenda are six men’s events: the 1,650, the 200 back, the 100 free, the 200 breast, the 200 fly, and the 400 free relay.