Seton Hall University
Patriot Invitational
Pirates Wrap Up Patriot Invite
11/18/2012 12:00:00 AM | Women's Swimming and Diving
FAIRFAX, VA. – In one of his many motivational speeches that has stood the test of time, pro football legend and Hall of Famer Vince Lombardi once proclaimed that “winning is a habit.”
True to Lombardi’s word, junior Kerrie Kolackovsky (Franklin Square, N.Y.) has made a habit of winning this season. One day after taking first the 100-yard breaststroke title with a new school record time, Kolackovsky scored her 10th victory of the season on Saturday, swimming her way to a 200-breast championship with a time of 2:18.19.
The Franklin Square native concludes the first half of the season with 11 wins and top-three finishes in all of the individual swims in which her time was not characterized as an exhibition effort.
Freshman Megan Mallon (Glen Mills, Pa.) also performed well in the 200-breast, picking up a BIG EAST qualifying time (2:25.87) and placing 11th overall. Sophomore Megan Mostoller (Cheshire, Conn.) also surpassed the conference standard as she won her heat in the night session by reaching the wall in 2:29.84.
The Pirates also sent two swimmers to the championship final in both the 200-yard butterfly and 200-yard backstroke as SHU mounted a final day push to climb the team leaderboard.
Jane Ehret (Florida, N.Y.) led the way in the 200-fly, placing fourth overall with a time of 2:06.73 in the final. Kelly Markwell (Old Bridge, N.J.) aided the cause with a sixth place effort, clocking in at 2:08.74 in the final. Markwell had previously swum a new personal-best 2:07.93 in preliminaries.
Backstroke extraordinaires Andrea Shuba (Pittsburgh, Pa.) and Cora Meehan (Noblesville, Ind.) advanced to the 200-back championship, but that was only half the story for The Hall during preliminaries. Freshmen Leah Mayer (London, Ontario) (18th, 2:09.13) and Alexa Santis (Ijamsville, Md.) (21st, 2:09.49) also earned second swims and were joined by classmate Kelly Miller (State College, Pa.) in qualifying for the conference meet in the event.
After ranking seventh and sixth respectively after preliminaries, Shuba went on to earn fifth place points, just ahead of Meehan who finished seventh in the final.
Mayer and Santis factored into the effort again as Seton Hall picked up three more qualifying times during their first encounter with the 1,650-yard freestyle 2012-13. Brenna O'Keefe (Hyde Park, N.Y.) was the team’s top performer in the event, improving upon her previous personal best by over 10 seconds with a sixth place time of 17:30.90.
Santis finished 19th (17:58.92) and Mayer placed 22nd (18:07.42) to add the event to their slate in what will be their first trip to the conference stage.
In the 100-yard freestyle, Gabi Levine (Garwood, N.J.) advanced past preliminaries and finished 22nd overall while Alie Zelenky (Mechanicsburg, Pa.) and Rae Congdon (Ottawa, Ontario) clocked additional BIG EAST qualifying marks in the morning session.
Levine, Zelenky, Congdon and Kolackovsky teamed to form a 400-yard freestyle relay team that bettered the Pirates’ season-best time by almost four seconds (3:35.82) in a 10th place showing to close the competition.
The Pirates will return home with a sixth place finish out of 10 female teams after accumulating 395 points over three days in Virginia. Ohio University won the team title with 785.5 points.
Over the first two months of the season, winning has also been a habit for the Pirates as a team as the squad carries an unblemished 7-0 dual meet record into the break. The seven wins is already a one victory improvement over the team’s total from a year ago.
19 team members have also already clinched a berth in the conference championships.
The team will take a winter training trip to Puerto Rico before returning to intercollegiate competition on Tuesday, January 15 in a road meet at Villanova.
Don't forget to follow @SHUSwim on Twitter to stay up on the latest from the swimming & diving program through the break.
