Jan. 27, 2012
Complete Results
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - After day one of the Big Ten Quad Duals, the Fighting Illini swimming and diving team trails Minnesota (176.5-28.5), Purdue (158-47) and Wisconsin (146-59). The Orange and Blue participated in 10 events Friday evening, earning one second-place finish, and will compete in nine more events to finish out the meet tomorrow afternoon.
"Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how we swam and how we competed tonight," head coach Sue Novitsky said. "It's great to see that we can improve our season-best times. We were right in the thick of it for a lot of the races, but you can tell we're a little tired. We need to keep cleaning up some details. I'm happy with where we are in our training heading into the Big Ten Championships. We are using this meet as a great opportunity to get into that atmosphere and keep learning how to keep distractions out and focus in on what we are doing. I've seen a lot of people make a lot of great changes, so that's exciting. We have to come back tomorrow and do it again."
The Illini were led by freshman Alison Meng, who finished second in the 100 back (56.31) and swam a personal-best time of 24.31 to finish 13th in the 50 free. Meanwhile, sophomore Jessica Holz continued her streak of solid 100-back performances by finishing seventh (57.60).
Two Orange and Blue swimmers placed eighth in their respective races, including junior Kathleen Knight in the 200 fly (2:05.42) and senior Kristen Manias, who tied for eighth in the 50 free (23.82). Classmate April McKee swam to a ninth-place finish in the 200 IM (2:07.48).
Illini freshmen Kayla Dlugopolski and Hailey Booth rounded out the top-10 finishers, earning 10th in the 1000 free (10:29.81) and 200 fly (2:08.83), respectively.
An additional pair of Illini freshmen swam personal-best times in the 100 back, including Alexa Chavez, who finished 12th (59.26) and Mary Beth Howard, who captured 14th (1:00.30).
Junior Keri Eberhardt led the Illini on the boards, placing sixth on the one-meter (242.85) and seventh on the three-meter board (250.20), while classmate Darragh McDermott came in eighth in both the one- (221.95) and three-meter (247.80) events.
The Illini relay teams finished fifth with a season-best time of 1:44.54 and eighth (1:47.00) in the 200 medley relay to start the meet. The 800 free relay team of Erin Lamb, Manias, Kelly Kunkel, and Courtney Pope finished sixth to wrap up day one of action in Minneapolis.
The Illini return to the pool tomorrow at 12 p.m. CT for the conclusion of the Quad Duals. Live stats will be available Visit fightingillini.com for full recap and results following the conclusion of the meet.
