Georgetown’s Women Lead, Men Tied With Villanova After Day 1 Of Big East Champs

Big East – Men and Women

• Wednesday, February 26 – Saturday, February 29
• Nassau Aquatic Center, East Meadow, New York (Eastern Time Zone)
• Defending Champion: Villanova women (6x) & Xavier men (1x) (results)
• Live results
• Live Video
• Championship Central
• Day 1 Results

East Meadow, N.Y. — The 2020 BIG EAST Swimming and Diving Championships is underway at the Nassau County Aquatic Center. The event has been held at this beautiful facility 13 times – and returned to Long Island for the 14th time in BIG EAST history. The Villanova women are favored to win their seventh consecutive title and the Xavier men are trying to claim their fifth title in seven years.

All Championship action will air live on the BIG EAST Digital Network and live-streamed on YouTube.

The Villanova and Georgetown men share the lead with 70 points after the first day of competition. Georgetown owns the lead on the woman’s side with 136 points.

800 Freestyle Relay:

Defending Big East Champion Villanova woman ran away with the 800 freestyle relay with a time of 7:16.85. The team of Kelly Montesi, Gracie Wielar, Nicole Welsh and Millie Routledge beat runner-up Xavier by over 7 seconds to start the night strong. Xavier (7:24.66) finished ahead of Georgetown (7:28.38) to round out the top 3.

For the men – Villanova surprised the field with a win by out-touching Seton Hall by less than 3/10’s. They touched the wall at 6:36.55 quickly followed by Seton Hall (6:36.84) and Xavier (6:37.33)

Women’s One Meter Diving:

Georgetown Junior Riley Fujioka took a 27 point lead in the preliminary round with a score of 279.00 points. Fujioka dived flawlessly in the finals adding 281.3 points to win gold with a cumulative score of 560.30. Elizabeth Miller from Georgetown took second with 516.5 and defending champ Bridie Dunn of Villanova took 3^rd with 511.00.

200 Medley Relay:

Last year this race was a ferocious battle between Defending Champs Xavier and Villanova. Xavier out-touched Villanova last year – and this year Villanova returned the favor. The Villanova team of Kelly Montesi, Rayann Jaryszak, Micaela Grassi and Millie Routledge took Gold with a time of 1:40.44 to retake the title. Xavier was close behind for second (141.24) and Georgetown took third (142.70).

One the men’s side Georgetown’s team of Andrew Carbone, Connor Morikawa, Michael Baldini and Sean Devlin took gold with a time of 1:28.48. The Georgetown team is young with two freshman, a sophomore and a junior. They will be a team to watch in the future. Seton Hall took second with a time of (1:29.08) and Xavier rounded out the podium with third (1:29.60)

Tomorrow’s Event Schedule –

Day two of the Big East Championships starts at 10 a.m. Thursday with preliminary races for the 500 freestyle, 200 individual medley, 50 freestyle and 200 freestyle relay. The men’s 3-meter springboard diving preliminary event begins at Noon with warm-ups starting at 11. The athletes will then return to the pool for Finals – which will begin at 6 p.m.

Team Standings  – Day 1

Women:

1. Georgetown   136
2. Villanova         121
3. Seton Hall         79
4. Xavier               68
5. Providence       67
6. Butler               54

Men:

1. Villanova                 70
2. Georgetown           70
3. Seton Hall               68
4. Xavier                      64
5. Providence             56

Gerry Dunn is a contributing writer for SwimSwam. He is a “Diving Dad” and resides in Washington, D.C. Gerry continues to dive competitively and is currently the Board of Directors for USA Diving. Want to share your thoughts? E-mail him at [email protected].