Purdue Wins Own Invitational

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Oct. 26. THE Purdue Boilermaker swimming and diving teams won their own invitational today on both the men’s and women’s sides.

For the men, the result came down to the last relay race, as the Boilermakers edged out Ball State, 568.5-530. On the women’s side, Purdue finished with 705.5 to Ball State’s 561.5.

Other teams attending and their finishes for the women were Indianapolis in third with 281 points, Butler in fourth with 120.5 points, IUPUI in fifth with 102 points and Valparaiso in sixth with 97.50 points.

Finishes for the men were IUPUI in third with 234.5 points, Indianapolis in fourth with 217 points, Vincennes in fifth with 154 points, Valparaiso in sixth with 111 points and Butler in seventh with 74 points.

On the day, 15 meet records were set with 10 of them by the Boilermakers. Orel Oral of Indianapolis set two records on the men’s side, while Bruno Fonseca and Megan Grundert of Indianapolis added one each. Jim Lullo of Ball State also tallied one record.

"Overall, I’m very happy with the way today’s meet went," said Purdue head women’s swimming coach Cathy Wright-Eger. "It’s always great to get back in the water and swim in a real meet, rather than just practice and I know that’s what this team’s been waiting for. You can just tell by their attitude and aggressiveness today.

"I thought it was actually very interesting how they were so much more aggressive in today’s meet than they were last night at the Intersquad meet. Usually they are more competitive with each other, but with this team, I can tell that they don’t like to be split up and I think that really says something about our team’s cohesiveness and our ability to work together well. I think today was a great show to our fans that they are ready to get out there and perform together this season."

Starting off the day for the Boilermakers on the 200 medley relays were two first-place finishes. For the women, seniors Lisa Dolansky, Kim Paradeise, Lindsay Lange and junior Jenni Bean finished with a time of 1:46.63.

For the men, with a meet-record time, senior Tad Sayce, sophomore Louis Paul, junior Tamas Bessenyei and senior Jeremy Wright finished first in 1:32.13.

Also swimming on relays for the women were sophomore Brandy Keever, junior Lindsay Kirchoff, senior Patricia Finnerty and sophomore Jill Collins with a time of 1:51.19. The Boilermaker team of sophomore Lydia DeNuccio, senior Karina Bolanos, junior Autumn Sample and freshman Ashley Koehn finished in 1:52.46.

Additional men’s relays were sophomore David Hughes, freshmen Giordan Pogioli and Blake Scholz and sophomore Eric Prugh with a time of 1:37.48 and junior Nick Cenci, senior Gui Rego and juniors Tony Ten Haagen and Ian Lehman with a time of 1:37.93.

"Like I said this past week, I think everyone’s just glad to finally get the season underway," said Purdue head men’s swimming coach Dan Ross. "These two meets this weekend started a chain of eight events and meets that we’ll swim in the next five weeks. Realistically, that’s a lot of meets for the fall season, but I know we’ll push ourselves to compete well."

In the women’s 200 freestyle, freshman Erica Chandler set a meet record with a time of 1:51.14 for first place, while sophomore Christine Leupold, Paradeise and senior Shannon Funk finished 2-3-4. Also scoring in the top 16 were sophomores Lindsey Meier and Jill Collins.

In the men’s 200 freestyle race, Purdue’s Kyle Jackson recorded a new meet record by breaking his own from 2001. He finished in 1:41.97, while sophmore Rion Epping was second in 1:41.97 and junior Tony Ten Haagen was fourth in 1:45.87. Sophomore Steuart Martens and junior Nick Cenci also scored in the top 16 for the Boilermakers.

Sophomore Tracy Duchac broke her own meet record in the women’s 50 free race with a time of 24.15. Lange finished third in 24.76 and senior Patricia Finnerty was seventh with a time of 25.35.

For the men’s 50 free race, Sayce finished second in 21.62, while sophomore John Arzner finished sixth with a time of 22.08. Lehman finished ninth with a time of 22.34.

Event seven, the women’s 200 individual medley, had five Boilermakers score in the top 16. Bean was second in 2:07.00, Leupold was fifth in 2:11.56, freshman Yvonne Laaper finished seventh in 2:12.12, Bolanos was 10th in 2:13.83 and Kirchoff finished 12th in 2:15.67.

For the men’s 200 IM, four Boilermakers scored in the top 16 with Jackson finishing second, Prugh fourth, senior Will Seelbach in fifth and junior Garth Bringman finishing ninth.

Dolansky won the women’s 100 butterfly with a meet record time of 57.59, while Finnerty, Sample and Bean finished 2-3-4. Also scoring in the top 16 were sophomore newcomer Sara Hayworth and DeNuccio.

In the men’s 100 butterfly, seven Boilermakers finished in the top 16 with freshman Blake Scholz leading the way in first with a time of 52.23. Bessenyei was second in 52.26, Pogioli was fifth in 52.87, sophomore Ignatius Goh finished seventh in 53.44, Ten Haagen was eighth in 53.62, Prugh finished 10th in 53.89 and Wright was 11th with a time of 54.11.

Paradeise set a meet record in the 100 freestyle with a time of 52.80 and sophomore Katie Seleskie finished tied for sixth in 54.80.

For the men’s 100 freestyle race, Paul set a meet record with a time of 46.39, senior Ehud Dekter finished third in 47.83 and Arzner was fourth with a time of 47.93. Epping also finished in the top 16, scoring five points in 12th place.

Dolansky led the way for the Boilermaker women in the 100 backstroke with a first-place finish and a time of 57.12. Keever finished second in 59.41, Sample was fourth with a time of 1:00.23 and DeNuccio rounded out the top five with a time of 1:01.36. Koehn and Hayworth also scored for the Old Gold and Black, finishing ninth and 10th, respectively, for a combined 16 points.

In the men’s 100 backstroke, five Purdue men tallied top-16 finishes. Sophomore David Hughes led the way in second place with a time of 52.45, Seelbach finished third in 52.89, Goh was eighth with a time of 55.06, Dekter finished 11th in 56.20 and freshman Mark Wolfred was 13th with a time of 57.21.

Chander set her second meet record of the day with a first-place finish in the women’s 500 freestyle with a time of 4:57.81. She bettered the 2001 record set by Paradeise by almost 10 seconds. Funk, Laaper and Meier followed in a 2-3-4 sequence, tallying times of 5:08.61, 5:11.05 and 5:13.91, respectively. Seleskie, Collins and freshman Kristen Melville finished in the top 16, as well.

Scholz was the Boilermakers’ top finisher in the men’s 500 freestyle, gathering a time of 4:45.20. Wolfred finished right behind in 4:45.39 and Lehman finished sixth with a time of 4:50.59. Hughes rounded out the Boilermakers’ lineup, finishing 10th with a time of 4:54.86.

For the women in the 100 breaststroke, Lange set a meet record with a time of 1:04.13, bettering her own time of a year ago. Kirchoff was the next Purdue finisher in fourth place with a time of 1:07.97 and Bolanos finished sixth in 1:08.47.

Bessenyei tallied another first-place finish in the 100 breaststroke with a meet record-time of 56.19, also bettering his own record from 2001. Bringman and Cenci were Purdue’s other top-16 placers in fifth and ninth with times of 1:01.52 and 1:03.22, respectively.

In the final race of the day for the women, the 200 free relay, Boilermakers tallied the first-place finish with a time of 1:38.19. The team of Seleskie, Chandler, Leupold and Keever took the win.

For the men the 200 free relay was the final race of their day, and Goh, Sayce, Paul and Wright finished first with a time of 1:24.28.

On the 1-meter diving board for the women, seniors Heather Bachman and Carrie Dougherty finished third and fifth, respectively, with freshman Carrie McCambridge taking fourth. Their scores were 215.45 for Bachman, 207.95 for McCambridge and 197.90 for Dougherty. Freshman Amber Kerns also competed and finished ninth with a score of 147.05.

On the 3-meter board, McCambridge was first with a score of 235.75, Bachman was second with 220.30 points, Dougherty finished seventh with 185.05 points and Kerns was eighth with a score of 158.85.

For the men, only junior David Hanisch competed for the Old Gold and Black, finishing first on the 3-meter board with a score of 245.20 and third on the 1-meter board with 213.25 points.

"Like I said, I was very happy with the way we performed today," said Wright-Eger. "But, ultimately, we’re going to have to step it up a notch if we want to compete with and beat a team like Notre Dame this week. We are a very talented team, but we do have to find that little something down deep to bring out for the Irish, especially being on the road at their place."

The Boilermaker women will return to the water on Tuesday, when they travel to South Bend for a rare mid-week meet against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. The Boilermakers fell to the Irish last year at the Boilermaker Aquatic Center and will look to avenge that loss in their home pool with next week’s match-up.

For the men, the Old Gold and Black will return to the water at Miami (Ohio) on Friday night, Nov. 1. Meet time is 6 p.m. and at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 2, the Boilermakers will host Iowa in their first Big Ten meet of the year.

"I want to add that I was very happy with our meet management staff and the way today’s meet went for all of us as we prepare for the women’s Big Ten’s. For our team and staff this year, we used today’s meet as a gauging point of where we need to be and what we need to do to make the Big Ten meet run smoothly. Today was a perfect run-through because about the same number of athletes that will be here for the Championships, were here today," said Wright-Eger.

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