Feb. 15, 2001
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - The Purdue women's swim team finished in seventh place today with 71 points after the first day of competition at the 2001 Big Ten Women's Swimming Championships. In this first day of competition, the women broke three varsity records and recorded a handful of lifetime best times. The Boilermakers are flanked on either side by Northwestern in sixth place with 93 points and Illinois in eighth place with 70 points.
"Today was just great for us," said Purdue head coach Cathy Wright-Eger. "For us to have finished the day in seventh place is a great tribute to the hard work and dedication these women have put into preparing for this weekend. We talked about preparing for the routine and keeping that momentum going, but today we finally broke through that barrier. It's great to have Kara (Hajek) back diving in the top eight and the 400 medley relay team's finish tonight was out of this world!"
After the morning preliminary session, the Boilermakers' lone representative in the individual events was junior diver Kara Hajek. Hajek finished fifth in her morning workout to qualify for a top eight finish. In the evening session, she came back and took fourth place for a varsity record and a personal lifetime best 295.15 points on the one-meter board.
As a team, the Old Gold and Black's main goal for the evening session was to race and finish strongly in the 200 free and the 400 medley relays. The Boilermakers did just that, as team members senior Missy Bromley, sophomore Lisa Dolansky, junior Kim Paradeise and senior Gyongyver Lakos recorded a season-best time of 1:33.72 in the 200 free relay.
Then in the final event of the evening, Purdue's 400 medley relay team of Dolansky, sophomore Lindsay Lange, junior Patricia Finnerty and Lakos found that last bit of strength left and finished with a season-best and varsity record-setting time of 3:41.44 to take third place.
The new time for the 400 medley relay team is a varsity record by five seconds and was previously held at 3:46.33 by Faerber, Reynolds, K. Fritsch and Hauser, set in 1993. For several of the past years at the NCAA Championships, the time of 3:41.44 was accepted as a `B Consideration Cut', as it should also be accepted this year. Currently on the Taper & Shave Top 50, that time would place Purdue as the third-fastest 400 medley relay in the country.
The Boilermakers will return to the pool tomorrow for day two of the 2001 Big Ten Women's Swimming Championships. Prelims will take place at 11 a.m. and finals at 7 p.m. The schedule of events is as follows:
200 Medley Relay400 Individual Medley100 Butterfly200 Freestyle100 Breaststroke100 BackstrokeThree-meter Diving800 Freestyle Relay
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