Seton Hall University
2013 BIG EAST Championship
Mitchell Headlines Strong Day Three
3/2/2013 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming and Diving
INDIANAPOLIS, IND. – Seton Hall diver Ben Mitchell (Milford, Pa.) continued his torrid run through his sophomore campaign on Friday, leading the way on an eventful day three at the 2013 BIG EAST Championships for the Pirates.
Mitchell, who has already set school records and qualified for the NCAA Zone Diving Championships from both the one-meter and three-meter boards this season, added the distinction of the first SHU diver to advance to the A final at the conference meet, finishing seventh with a score of 310.40 in the night session.
Mitchell’s score was a mere 1.5 points behind sixth place. He finished the day as one of four individual scorers for The Hall as senior Austin Acheson (Olathe, Kan.) earned a second swim in the 400-yard IM as did Ryan O'Shaughnessy (Coral Springs, Fla.) and James Logan (Wallingford, Pa.) in the 100-breast.
Acheson entered the meet seeded in the top-16 in the conference in the 400-IM and improved upon his previous season-best time by over two seconds in preliminaries, advancing to the consolation finals. In the night session, he was nearly a full second faster than his morning performance, finishing 15th overall with a time of 4:00.94.
SHU’s two top 100-breast performers during the regular season, O’Shaughnessy and Logan each posted new season-best marks during preliminaries to advance to the night session. In the consolation final, O’Shaughnessy placed 12th, the top finish of the day by a Seton Hall swimmer, with a new personal-record time of 56.67. Logan picked up a 16th-place finish with a finals time of 57.12.
Logan and O’Shaughnessy were also present on the Pirates’ 400-medley relay squad, teaming with junior Matt Benson (Overland Park, Kan.) and freshman Tim Bosse (New Windsor, N.Y.) to pick up valuable points with an eighth-place effort. The squad combined to clock a time of 3:25.31, surpassing the Pirates’ previous season-best mark by nearly six seconds.
Benson was also SHU’s top finisher in the 100-back, producing his fastest time of 2012-13 (52.09) to place 22nd. Bosse led all Pirates in the 200-free individual event finishing 24th overall with a time of 1:42.47, the best of his young career.
Friday’s program also included the 100-fly, and a number of other team members responded to the championship atmosphere with their best efforts of their careers. Junior Tyler Naumann (Middletown, Conn.) led Seton Hall in the event with a 25th-place finish, registering a personal record mark of 51.72. Fellow junior Jon Ropson (McKinney, Texas) posted a personal-best of his own, touching in 51.92 to rank two spots behind Naumann.
After earning points in four events on Friday, the Pirates climbed to seventh in the team standings with a three-day total of 110 points. SHU enters the final day only eight points behind sixth-place Georgetown, having never finished higher than seventh as a team in program history.
The 2013 BIG EAST Championships will come to an end tomorrow, Saturday, March 2 with six swimming and one diving event on the men’s side. Competition will be divided into three sessions, the first beginning at 10:00 a.m.
