Notre Dame vs. Michigan State

EAST LANSING, Michigan, January 21. THE Michigan State men's swimming & diving team opened its weekend strong, posting a 155.5 to 144.5 win over Notre Dame on Friday, Jan. 21 at McCaffree Pool at IM West in East Lansing. With the win, the men improve to 5-1 on the dual season. Freshman Bryan Williams led the team in the freestyle events, winning both the 100-yard and the 200-yard events.

"We got a little lucky with some of the finishes today," said MSU head coach Matt Gianiodis. "But, overall our guys did a nice job and I thought we swam okay. There are some areas where we have been better than we were today, but we will see. We have a big one tomorrow at Ohio State with both the men and women."

The meet opened strong for the Green and White in the 200-yard medley relay. The team of sophomore Jacob Jarzen, senior Kevin Puskaric, sophomore Josh Geschwendt and Williams combined to post a time of 1:30.70. The Spartans topped the closest Notre Dame team by 1.68 seconds.

Williams earned his first individual win when he narrowly edged teammate freshman Pat Falconer in the 200-yard freestyle. Williams clocked in with a 1:40.10 while Falconer was 1:40.93. Junior Mark Schramm finished third with a time of 1:41.64, giving MSU the sweep of the event.

Jarzen returned to the pool for the 100-yard backstroke which saw him finish with a time of 50.27. Jarzen had to rally in the final length of the pool to swim down Petar Petrovic of Notre Dame who turned in a time of 50.33.

Puskaric turned in an impressive time of 54.94 in the 100-yard breaststroke to finish 1.81 seconds ahead of the next swimmer for first place.

Senior Ivan Zalessov faced tough competition on the 1-meter board early in the meet. Zalessov earned the win with a score of 346.80, only 4.73 points ahead of Eric Lex of Notre Dame in second place.

Williams once again was the top finisher in his event when he turned in the fastest 100-yard freestyle time, clocking in a 46.77. Williams' time was only 0.06 seconds ahead of second and 0.13 ahead of third.

Jarzen picked up his second individual win of the night when he finished first in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:49.67.

Gunning for the pool record (1:59.14) in the 200-yard breaststroke, which he set in 2008, Puskaric swam out in front of the group to hold a commanding lead in the event. Puskaric kept pace with his record, but was unable to top it as he turned in a time of 1:59.63, good enough for first overall by 6.76 seconds.

The 100-yard butterfly saw the Spartans sweep the event in strong fashion. Jarzen picked up first-place overall with a time of 49.07 while Michael Uggeroi was second (50.82) and Williams was third (51.09).

On the 3-meter board, Lex got the better end of Zalessov as the Lex earned a score of 375.60 compared to Zalessov's 351.37.

The Spartans return to action tomorrow (Jan. 22) when they travel to Columbus, Ohio for a dual with Ohio State. Action is slated to begin at 1 p.m.

The above article is a press release submitted to Swimming World Magazine. It has been posted in its entirety without editing. Swimming World offers all outlets the chance to reach our audience by contacting us at Newsmaster@swimmingworldmagazine.com. However, Swimming World reserves the right to choose what material is posted.

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