Men Place Fourth At Patriot Meet

The Georgetown swimming and diving team saw two school records fall as well as several season-best times throughout the three-day George Mason Patriot Invitational last weekend.

The men’s squad finished fourth among nine teams, with 471 points. Old Dominion topped the pack with 655 points, followed by Shippensburg and George Washington, which had 541.4 and 540 points, respectively. The Hoya women’s squad placed 10th in a field of 13 with 103.5 points, with Washington State (916), Ohio State (651) and Boston College (482) rounding out the top three.

“It was sort of a mixed performance. We had some really good performances and some disappointing ones,” Head Coach Beth Bower said. “We could have competed better against some other teams and didn’t race as well as we should have.”

The Georgetown men started off strong, finishing the first day of competition in second place. Junior Will Miller led off the Hoyas’ 400 medley relay team of senior Steve Brown, sophomore Bryan Evangelista and junior Chris Lengle to place third, finishing behind George Washington and Shippensburg with a time of 3:34.70. iller’s split time of54.44 in the 100-yard back qualified him for the Big East Championships in February.

Individually, Miller took third in the 500-yard freestyle in 4:45.08, followed by freshmen Edmund Caulfield and Shodai Enters and sophomore Jim McLaughlin, who placed 14th, 16th and 17th, respectively.

Junior Chris Lengle also earned a third-place finish, swimming a 21.43 in the 50-yard freestyle event. Georgetown’s depth in the sprint and distance freestyle events showed, as freshman Dan Connelly, Enters, junior Matt O’Connor and McLaughlin all placed in the top 24. Lengle’s solid performance in the 50 as well as a fourth-place time of 1:43.69 in the 200-yard freestyle qualify him for the Big East Championships.

The Hoyas’ relays continued to prosper throughout the weekend, with Enters, Evangelista, Lengle and Miller combining to place third in the 800 freestyle relay with a 7:06.56 on Saturday. The following day, Connelly joined Miller, Evangelista and Enters to take another third, this time in the 400 freestyle relay with a time of 3:11.23, less than a quarter-of-a-second behind second-place G.W.

“I couldn’t have asked for too much more,” Bower said of the men’s performance. “They weren’t quite as tough the second and third day, but it’s a tough meet format.”

The women’s squad was led by sophomore Lauren Moynihan and junior Lauren Schmidt, who both made it into the Georgetown record books. Moynihan shaved almost two-tenths of a second off of Caroline Arpe’s 1997 record of 4:42.51 in the 400-yard individual medley, posting a new time of 4:42.33. This marks oynihan’s fourth record-breaking swim so far in her career as a Hoya. Schmidt lowered the school record in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 1:00.4, over a half-of-a-second better than Carrie Shelton’s 1:01.3, also in 1997.

In addition to Schmidt, junior Caragh Moynihan and sophomore Kristie Hunt qualified for the Big East Championship meet in the 100-yard butterfly (59.04) and the 100-yard breaststroke (1:10.07), respectively.

The top relay swim from the Hoyas came on Friday, from Caragh oynihan, sophomores Erin Lenahan and Liz D’Auria and Schmidt, who swam a 1:39.58 to take sixth in the 200 freestyle relay.

This weekend marked the Hoyas’ final competition of the semester. Georgetown continues to train, and will take an 11-day trip to Puerto Rico to compete against conference-foe Seton Hall before traveling back to the district to face a tough second-half of the season.

For now, “We’re going back to what we know best – working hard,” Bower said.