After a night of rest, the Purdue Swim-Dive team was back in action Saturday afternoon when they hosted and defeated ten Indiana teams at the 2014 Indiana Intercollegiate meet held at the Boilermaker Aquatic Center in West Lafayette, Ind. The Purdue women scored 786.5 points to defeat 10 teams, while the men took 733 points away from nine teams for the win.
The Purdue women opened their season Friday evening with a 199-94 win against Ohio’s University of Miami. The men’s diving squad was also victorious defeating the RedHawks 32-6, while the Purdue men held an intra-squad meet on Friday to limber up for Saturday afternoon.
Joining Purdue on the crowded Boilermaker pool deck Saturday afternoon were Ball State (women only), Butler, DePauw, Evansville, University of Indianapolis, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Rose-Hulman, Valparaiso, Wabash (men only), and Indiana (selected men). The all-Indiana collegiate contest varied between 40 to 60 entries for the individual events and multiple heats for the relays.
The meet featured 10 swim and two diving contests (1-meter and 3-meter) for both the men and women. The swim events included the short relays and focussed on the shorter events (i.e., 50-yard free, the 100-yard events for all strokes, plus the 200-yard free and 200-yard individual medley). The 500-yard free was included to test the middle distance swimmers.
Click here for full meet results.
IT WAS ALL PURDUE OUT OF THE GATES
The Purdue men and women made a statement of what was to come by both taking first and second in the afternoon’s first event, the 200-yard medley relay. They never let up with the Purdue women winning seven events and both relays, and the men winning nine events and the 200-yard medley relay.
Double swim wins for Purdue came from freshman Stephen Seliskar and junior Allie Davis. Davis took the 200-yard free (1:49.06), which Purdue swept the top five positions in, the 500-yard free (4:51.67), and was on the winning 200-yard free relay (1:36.23) squad. Seliskar won the 50-yard free (21.04), the 100-yard backstroke (50.11) and was the lead-off leg for the men’s winning 200-yard medley relay (1:31.98) team.
Individual wins for the Purdue women came from senior Kylie Vogel in the 50-yard free (23.35), senior Trish Regan in the 100-yard fly (57.72), and junior Nika Karlina Petric in the 200-yard individual medley (2:05.74), which was a first-through-fifth sweep for Purdue.
For the men, the individual Purdue wins came from sophomore Lyam Dias in the 100-yard breaststroke (54.92), Josh Brooks in the 200-yard individual medley (1:53.98), Josh Ehrman in the 200-yard free (1:41.12), freshman Daniel Conway in the 500-yard free (4:37.16), and sophomore Guillermo Blanco in the 100-yard fly (49.93). Blanco was the only man to break 50 seconds.
The Boilers owned the boards, as Mary-Beth Dunnichay led the Purdue women with a one-two-three sweep in the 1-meter and a one-two finish in the 3-meter event. Ball State’s Madie Zirzow placed third in the 3-meter to stop the Purdue sweep from happening. On the men’s side, it was all Purdue for the top four places in the 1-meter and the top five positions for the 3-meter event. The Purdue diving wins were split by Jamie Bissett (1-meter) and Steele Johnson (3-meter). IUPUI’s senior Cody Watts was the first non-Purdue diver placing on the scoreboard, taking fifth in the 1-meter and sixth in the 3-meter.
NOT ALL OF INDIANA’S TALENT IS AT PURDUE
Sure, Purdue had depth and on occasion pulled the broom for a few major sweeps, but a few individual performances stopped Purdue from being the story every time.
IUPUI’s Lexi Laird flexed her sprint muscles for IUPUI Saturday by taking first in the 100-yard back (57.43) and second in the 50-yard free (23.99). Teammate Lennart Kuester took the men’s 100-yard free (46.81) away from top-seeded and Purdue speedster Brooks, who finished third (47.27). Kuester also took third in the 50-yard free (21.12).
The double, freshman attack of Jon Stoller and Aaron Brysch from IUPUI stopped the Purdue men from sweeping the top four positions in the 200-yard individual medley with their third (1:56.81) and fourth-place (1:57.35) finishes.
It wasn’t just IUPUI, either. Evansville and Ball State made some noise. In the women’s 100-yard breaststroke, Ball State’s Amanda Kedzierski won it with a personal best (1:04.44) in front of two Purdue women. And senior Michelle Tipton took first for Evansville in the 100-yard free (52.26) in front of fellow senior Carlena Magley from Ball State, who posted a 52.86.
OSU AND CINCINNATI ARE UP NEXT FOR PURDUE WOMEN AND DIVERS
The women and divers are in action this coming Friday, when they will be in Columbus, Ohio to compete against Ohio State University and Cincinnati. The swim men don’t compete until Oct. 30 (Thursday), when they head to Oxford, OH to take on the University of Miami’s RedHawks. After they will take a day of rest before the full squad heads to South Bend, Ind. on Nov. 1 (Saturday) to dual Notre Dame.
Purdue goes 21 in the 50 free, 1:41 in the 200, and a shockingly slow 3rd place 47.5 100 free. Looks like a rebuilding year after the loss of Tucker and a couple other key freestylers.
wouldn’t put much into this meet. Mostly swimming off events. They likely will place higher this year in Big Ten.