The Notre Dame men's and women's teams experienced mixed results on Saturday when they faced Purdue. While the women were able to defeat their in-state rivals, the men could not pull off the upset against the Boilermakers.
The No. 24 women's team remained perfect at home with a 189-111 win at the Rolfs Aquatic Center. The Irish won all but three events in the meet, as Notre Dame lost its first event in its home pool when Purdue's Allie Smith took first place in the 100-yard backstroke.
"We were tired after our hardest week of training at this point of the season," Irish coach Brian Barnes said. "The purpose of this meet was to race tough, and we did it."
Irish sophomore Samantha Maxwell and freshman Gwen Blythe got the Irish a combined 26 points with their sweeps of the 100 and 200-breaststroke. Sophomores Amywren Miller and Katie Casey both contributed sweeps of their own as Miller won both the 50 and 100-freestyle and Casey won the 100 and 200-butterfly. Senior Casey Wagner earned nine points for the Irish with her win in the 1000-freestyle.
On the other side, the Notre Dame men came up short against the No. 16 Boilermakers with a 187-108 loss. Purdue freshman Olympian David Boudia headlined the Boilermakers win as he set two pool records with his wins in the 3-meter and 1-meter diving events.
Despite the loss, Irish coach Tim Welsh still saw positives from the Notre Dame loss.
"Congratulations to Purdue. They've been on the road for two days and swam great [Friday at Northwestern] and again [Saturday]. They're a very good team and they earned it," Welsh said. "Our improvements are hard to see from the stands, but during this serious training phase we're going through we're seeing signs that our best swims still lie ahead."
Irish sophomore Michael Sullivan took first place finishes in the 200-backstroke and 400-individual medley. Sullivan took the 200-back with a time of 1:52.79. Sullivan narrowly edged Irish junior Andrew Deters in the 400-IM, winning by a half-second.
The Notre Dame women will not compete for nearly a month until they head to the Ohio State Invitational from Dec. 5-7. The men return to action Saturday in a tri-meet at Cleveland State against the Vikings and Miami (Ohio).
