Notre Dame sent three individuals and a relay team to the Boiler-Make-It Last Chance meet at the Boilermaker Aquatic Complex in West Lafayette, Indiana, on Saturday, but none could record improved times for the season.
Sophomores Danielle Margheret and Catherine Mulquin competed in the 100-yard breaststroke and 100-yard freestyle, respectively, while junior Catherine Galletti swam a time trial in the 100-yard butterfly. The 200-yard medley relay team of Galletti, Mulquin and seniors Emma Reaney and Courtney Whyte also competed at the meet.
The Boiler-Make-It served as a final opportunity for Notre Dame swimmers to qualify for the NCAA championships. Irish interim head coach Tim Welsh said that although the team was not able to set any new best times, he was happy with the performance and glad the team went.
“We only swam a few events down there,” Welsh said. “The purpose of the meet was that this is the last weekend to qualify for the NCAA championships. They call it an NCAA qualification meet, but we all say it’s a ‘last chance’ meet: It’s your last chance to qualify for the NCAA championships if you’re going to do it.
“It was a really valiant effort all around, and everybody gave it their all, but it turned out that the fastest times we went at the ACC meet were the fastest times we went. But if you get one chance, and you don’t take it, you never know, so the value of the meet is just making sure that the fastest times we’ve done are the fastest times we’ve done.”
Welsh said the 200 medley relay team was Notre Dame’s best hope to qualify, and although it achieved an NCAA ‘B’ cut, the group was unable to improve upon the mark it set at the ACC championships on Feb. 18.
Margheret and Galletti also set NCAA ‘B’ cuts, with Margheret coming within half a second of her time at the conference championships.
“Principally, we went to swim the 200-yard medley relay,” Welsh said. “But the end of the story was, we did not go any faster than we had gone previously — we even changed the order, but we didn’t go any faster.”
The relay recorded a time of 1:39.05 in the preliminaries, less than a second away from its ACC championship time, but was disqualified in both the final and the time trial for early take-offs by Reaney.
Irish divers will next compete at the NCAA Zone C Meet in Columbus, Ohio, starting March 12. The swimmers are then in action at the NCAA championships, starting March 19 in Greensboro, North Carolina.
