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Auburn Women Move to 3-0 In Dual Season; Men Split Between Notre Dame and No. 3 Michigan
SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The
Auburn women’s swimming and diving team remained unbeaten Saturday at
the Notre Dame Tri-Meet after sweeping 18th-ranked Notre Dame and
13th-ranked Indiana by scores of 180-120 each. The Tigers carried over
their strong performance at Vanderbilt two weeks ago and continued to
get strong performances from their freshmen, gaining six event wins,
two by freshman Allyx Purcell.
Purcell claimed victory in the 50
free (22.87) and 100 free (50.30), putting her just a tenth of a second
off an NCAA ‘B’ cut time in the 50 free and one full second off the ‘B’
time in the 100 free. Purcell’s win in the 50 free was also the second
of Auburn’s 1-2-3 finishes as seniors Haley Krakowski (23.56) and
Aubrey Peacock (23.76) finished a second behind.
“Our women
improved greatly from their first meet a few weeks ago,” Auburn head
coach Brett Hawke said. “Emily Bos and Allyx Purcell were standouts
today, but there were plenty of bright spots. That was what we wanted
to do as a coaching staff in this meet and that was to improve on what
we did at Vanderbilt and I thought we did that.”
As for the men,
the Tigers split their duals, beating the Irish, 153-147, and falling
to defending national champion, Michigan, 195-103. In their first
competition of the 2013-14 season, Auburn tallied two event wins,
claiming first in the 50 free and 200 back. Senior Marcelo Chierighini
won the fastest race of the day, touching the wall in 19.93 in the 50
free, while freshman Joe Patching won the 200 back (1:45.85) by an
almost full second.
“Today was a little of a struggle for the
men,” Hawke said. “They weren’t quite ready in the first half of the
meet, so we talked during the break and they picked up the pace the
rest of the way. Our guys performed much better in the second half of
competition and did what we needed to do to beat Notre Dame and put up
some good races against a great Michigan team.”
The women kicked
the meet off on the right foot after winning the 200 medley relay to
claim the first 11 points for the Tigers. The team of Bos, sophomore
Annie Lazor, junior Megan Fonteno and Purcell clocked a 1:41.97 in the
race to take their first lead that would never be relinquished.
Trying
to build off her two wins from a meet ago, freshman Ashley Neidigh took
a runner-up finish in the 1,000 free after a time of 10:00.51. Her time
was still almost two seconds faster from her previous swim for a
season-best.
Continuing with the freshmen surge from the women’s
team, freshman MaryElizabeth Warhol earned her second top-three
individual finish of her career after taking third-place in the 200
free (1:51.76), a tenth of a second faster than her previous best.
In
the 100 back, Bos continued to perform well in her best event, taking
home the prize with a time of 54.07, her first appearance in the 100
back this season. The win for Auburn was part of a 1-2-3 finish in the
event as fellow senior Aubrey Peacock (55.25) and sophomore Sarah
Reynolds (56.52) made it a Tiger sweep.
The Auburn women then
took two of the three top spots in the 200 butterfly as junior Sarah
Peterson (2nd, 2:03.14) and sophomore Alexandria Merritt (3rd, 2:03.30)
gave the Orange and Blue seven more points towards the two dual wins.
Reynolds
completed the final win for the Tigers on the day after winning the 200
back with a time of 2:00.35, just a little more than a second off the
NCAA ‘B’ cut time. The individual win was the first for Reynolds in the
young year.
As for the men, seniors James Disney-May,
Chierighini and freshmen Kyle Darmody and Michael Duderstadt earned a
runner-up finish in the 200 medley relay (1:29.84), the Tigers first
race of the year. However, that would be the last top-three finish in
any race for Auburn until Patching earned a runner-up finish in the 100
back (48.86).
Chierighini continued his strong start to the
season in his second event of the day, the 100 freestyle. The senior
took home second-place (44.36), just missing an NCAA ‘B’ cut time.
Today’s
events were also the first day of competition for the Auburn diving
team this year. Junior Morgan Mullins was Auburn’s high women’s scorer
of the day, taking fourth-place in the 1-meter (258.50)) and
third-place in the 3-meter (280.20), en route to earning NCAA Zone
qualifying scores. Senior John Santieu was the high scorer for the
Auburn men with runner-up finishes in both the 1-meter (324.30) and
3-meter (344.70).
“Morgan made some great improvements today,”
Auburn head diving coach Jeff Shaffer said. “The whole meet was a great
first outing for the team. They’re starting to know what they need to
do and where the focus needs to be heading forward.”
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