SWIMMING & DIVING | GU Heads to Jersey After Cancelled Meet

The Georgetown men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams will square off against Lehigh, The College of New Jersey and Princeton in a quad meet today and tomorrow in the team’s first competition since its Oct. 20 meet against Towson.

The Big East quad meet against Connecticut, Villanova and Rutgers, which was supposed to occur last weekend, was cancelled because of inclement weather caused by Hurricane Sandy.

While the Towson meet resulted in losses on both the men’s and women’s sides, Head Coach Jamie Holder still felt that the team put up a strong performance.

“I thought [the Towson meet] was good,” Holder said. “I thought we swam pretty well — better than the week before — and that’s what we were looking for.”

The team looks to continue its trajectory of improvement in the upcoming quad meet because a good performance will be needed to compete with a tough Princeton team.

The hurricane gave the Blue and Gray a little extra time to prepare for this big meet, which Holder sees as an advantage.

“We lost an opportunity to race, but it was more of a blessing in disguise,” he said. “Three weeks in a row of having meets is a lot. We were able to stay here and train a little bit [and] got some good races in during practice.”

The team looks to be strongest in the longer events, such as the 200-yard backstroke, 1000-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle for the men’s team and the 500 free and 200 back on the women’s side.

Sophomore Michael Ng and freshman Jack Meuhlhueser took first and second, respectively, in the 200 back during the Towson meet, and both posted times faster than those of both Lehigh’s and TCNJ’s best backstrokers in their last meets. For the women, freshman Erin Timochenko finished second in the same event against Towson with a time that will closely contest the top backstroker from Lehigh.

For the 500 free, senior Paul Qunicy and freshman Austin Evenson placed second and fourth in the Towson meet with times of 4:40.94 and 4:47.72, respectively. Quincy’s time handily beats the 4:47.22 that Lehigh’s best freestyler swam in the last meet. Evenson, on the other hand, is set to face some close competition in this race; both Quincy and Evenson have TCNJ’s best swimmer — who finished in 4:53.62 in his last meet — beat in this event.

On the women’s side, freshman Nicole Tronolone and freshman Shannon McNulty took third and fourth in the 500 free with times of 5:11.41 and 5:17.46, respectively. Both look to compete against Lehigh’s top 500-yard freestyler, who posted a 5:10.71 in her last meet. The women and men are hoping for repeat wins in the 200-yard medley relay, as both sides took down the top Towson relay teams in this event and swam faster times than either Lehigh or TCNJ in their last meets.

Evenly matched with Lehigh and with a slight edge on TCNJ, the Hoyas come into the meet with high hopes for their strongest events.  The team also hopes to compete in as many events as possible against Princeton, a team that is “a little bit ahead of us in terms of talent,” according to Holder.

Summing up his expectations for the meet, he said, “I think we should do pretty well in the distance events, and I think our mid-distance should be pretty strong as well, but overall, I’m just looking forward to seeing what we can do.”

The meet will begin at 6 p.m. today at Princeton’s DeNunzio Pool and will continue all day tomorrow.