The Notre Dame men and women each picked up wins at their home triangular, dubbed the Shamrock Invite. The Irish men knocked off Missouri State (223-147) and Iowa (224.5-145.5) while the women topped the Hawkeyes 263-106 and also outswam Northwestern, although the two teams elected not to count the score of their own dual, considering Notre Dame already dualed Northwestern just three weeks prior in Evanston.
In a tight battle, the Northwestern women came back from a 16-point day one deficit to knock off the Hawkeye women 186-184. The Missouri State men also beat Iowa by a score of 213-157.
The event was a three-session competition, with one session Friday and two Saturday.
Emma Reaney was the story for the Irish women. The junior won four individual events in all and also blew up a Notre Dame pool record by going 1:58.42 in the 200 IM.
Reaney won both breaststrokes (going 1:00.71 and 2:12.38) and added a 100 fly win in 53.99.
The other dominant Irish woman was senior Kelly Ryan, who swept the sprint freestyles (23.17 in the 50 and 50.33 in the 100) and backstroke races (54.42/1:57.57), in addition to swimming legs on three of Notre Dame’s five winning relays.
Ryan and Reaney combined to power the winning 200 medley, 400 free and 800 free relays, and also swam on a 400 medley relay that touched the wall first but was disqualified for a false start. That 800 free relay also smashed a pool record, going 7:22.65.
For the Notre Dame men, freshman Joseph Petrone was a big point scorer, going 4:30.39 to lead a 1-2-3-4 Irish sweep in the 500 free and winning the mile in 15:40.81. The Irish also swept the diving events with fellow freshman Joseph Coumos.
The Northwestern women were able to top Iowa with depth, despite the two teams battling hard in the relay events. The Wildcats beat the Hawkeyes in the 400 medley and 800 free relays, but dropped tight decisions in both the 200 medley and 200 free relays.
Nonetheless, Northwestern used a big 1650 win from freshman Lauren Abruzzo (16:34.19) to gain big points, and rolled the rest of the way on depth to outlast Iowa.
In that 1650, Abruzzo stopped Hawkeye junior Becky Stoughton‘s tear – she won the 500 Friday in 4:51.33 and the 200 Saturday morning in 1:51.09 to set up a near-sweep of the distance races.
The Missouri State men had some great relay success, winning three of the five relays contested. The Bears went 1:22.01 to top Iowa in the 200 free relay, 3:15.68 to crush the field in the 400 medley and 3:00.81 to once again touch out Iowa in the 400 free relay. Junior Paul Le swam on all three of those winning squads, and also added four individual wins to finish the weekend nearly undefeated in competition. The only race he didn’t win was the 200 medley relay, where the Bears took 3rd, .7 out of first place.
Le won the 200 IM (1:48.16), 100 fly (49.14), 100 back (48.41) and 200 back (1:46.60), winning a pair of touchouts in the 100 yard races to stay perfect.
The Hawkeye men had a couple of big events that provided the brunt of their point advantages. Charles Holliday went 20.81 to lead a 1-2-3-4 sweep of the 50 free (although only the top 3 could score points). Second in that race was sophomore Roman Trussov, who swept the breaststroke events on the day with times of 55.05 and 2:00.26. Trussov and Holliday combined to win the 200 medley relay for the Hawkeyes in 1:29.78.
