Irish travel south for pair of meets over break

No. 24 Notre Dame will look to build on its early-season success when it travels south to Atlanta and Auburn, Alabama, this weekend.

Friday will see the Irish (1-0) swimming against host Georgia Tech and South Carolina before they head west to take on No. 15 Auburn and Vanderbilt on Saturday.

“We’re into October now, so we’ve got some worn out girls,” Irish assistant coach Ryan Van Gunten said. “Their tired, but they’re competing. They’re a determined group of girls.”

Notre Dame has had two strong showings thus far, winning a dual meet it hosted against Michigan State on Oct. 3, 182-118, before placing second to No. 16 Ohio State in the four-team Dennis Stark Relays hosted last Friday at the Rolfs Aquatic Center.

Irish senior Emma Reaney leads the way for the swimmers with four first-place event finishes, after winning the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke races as well as being a part of the first place 200-yard medley relay team against the Spartans. She then added another first place in the 300-yard butterfly relay team alongside fellow seniors Bridget Casey and Courtney Whyte, who was also a part of the 200-yard medley relay team against Michigan State. Casey won the 200-yard individual butterfly race the weekend prior as well.

The diving duo of juniors Lindsey Streepey and Emma Gaboury teamed up to sweep the gold medals in the 1-meter diving relay and 3-meter synchronized diving last weekend at the Stark Relays. This sweep followed Steepey’s individual victory of the diving events against Michigan State.

“We have very experienced divers who have set lofty goals for themselves,” Van Gunten said. “They’ve been training like they want to achieve those goals, too, so that has been great to see so far.”

This is the first road trip of the year for Notre Dame, after it spent the last two weekends at home. In addition to continuing the hard early-season training sessions in the pool, the week will be especially busy for the Irish, as they grind through midterm exam week. Van Gunten said he knows the week will be tough for the girls, but he feels confident they will be able to put on a good showing this weekend.

“I haven’t seen anything in their energy or attitude this week in practice so far to show that they are letting it affect them too much,” Van Gunten said. “I just want to see them use great strategy in their races and give it their all and compete. I know it’s kind of cliché, but that’s what it is, they’ve got to compete. They’re going to be tired, but I don’t want them to sit back and let the other swimmers dictate the races.

“We have to be fast. We’ll be facing an ACC school in Georgia Tech and an SEC school on Friday and then two more SEC schools on Saturday, so the competition is going to be very good.”

With interim head coach Tim Welsh out of town for the week, Van Gunten said it had been pretty busy around the office, so he had not had the time to break down the times and results from the other teams’ early season meets. While there may be some shifting of line-ups to possibly use any advantages the Irish have, Van Gunten said this early in the season, they are keeping the bigger picture in mind.

“Really at this time, we are still getting a feel for where we’re at physically right now,” Van Gunten said. “We’re just going to go out and see where we’re at. We just need to keep working hard here in the early season to get to where we want to be.”

The Irish will square off with Georgia Tech and South Carolina on Friday at 4 p.m. at the Campus Recreation Center in Atlanta and then will meet Auburn and Vanderbilt the next afternoon at 2 p.m. at the James E. Martin Aquatic Center in Auburn, Alabama.