Notre Dame was victorious in this weekend's dual meet against Michigan State, granting the Irish their second consecutive win against a Big Ten team. Notre Dame easily took down the Spartans, 174-121, at the Rolfs Aquatic Center on Saturday to improve its overall record to 6-3.
Despite six individual wins for Notre Dame in its last meeting with the Spartans in 2011, Michigan State took the edge with a 155.5-144.5 win. This time, the Irish came out with both more individual wins and the overall victory.
"It was great to come out with this much energy after a difficult training trip," junior Chris Johnson said. "We have a bit of history with MSU so to come out and control the meet as well as we did only indicates good things to come at Big East."
The afternoon kicked off with a lead in the 200-yard medley relay, in which senior PetarPetrovic, freshman Cameron Miller, sophomore Frank Dyer and junior Kevin Overholt won the event in 1:31.04. Strong finishes like this one continued throughout the day.
Individual first place finishes on the swimming side included freshman Jimmy McEldrew in the 1,650-yard freestyle with a time of 15:44.39, Overholt in the 200-yard freestyle in 1:40.90 and the 100-yard freestyle in 45.95, Miller in the 100-yard breaststroke in 56.82 and the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:01.10, Dyer in the 50-yard freestyle in 20.69 and freshman Matthew DeBlasio in the 500-yard freestyle in 4:36.09.
Diving saw a successful day as well with sweeps on both the 1-meter and 3-meter events. Freshman Nick Nemetz took first place on both the 1-meter board, with a score of 353.85, and the 3-meter board, with a score of 354.23. In both events freshman Michael Kreft, freshman Ted Wagner and senior Sean Rademaker rounded out the Irish effort with second, third and fourth place finishes.
It was not only the first-place finishes, but also the ones that followed seconds behind to edge out Spartan swimmers that sealed the win for the Irish. In the 50-yard freestyle, the Irish took first, second and third place when Johnson and freshman Zach Stephens touched in right after Dyer at 21.18 and 21.36 seconds, respectively.
"Going 1-2-3 in some events was awesome to see," Johnson said. "Even though some people were swimming atypical events, to be able to sweep the top three spots in multiple events shows us how deep we really are."
The Irish will look to carry this victory to next weekend, when they will play host for the Shamrock Invitational on Friday and Saturday.
Contact Megan Finneran at mfinnera@nd.edu
