Players Mentioned
WS&D Heads to Quad Meet at Rutgers
11/6/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Swimming and Diving
LIVE RESULTS
SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. - Off to a combined 11-1 start, the Seton Hall men's and women's swimming and diving squads hit the turnpike tomorrow and head to Piscataway to meet BIG EAST rivals Georgetown and Villanova as well as the Scarlet Knights on the women's side in a two-day competition.
This weekend will serve as a bit of a litmus test for the Pirates who are coming off a convincing sweep of another conference foe in Providence that moved the men's record to 5-1 while the women stayed perfect at 6-0.
While the gaudy records are an accurate representation of early returns on a talented 2014-15 team, ever-looming is the conference championship meet in February. By sharing the pool with three league members in the span of a week, The Hall will get its opportunity to see how this unit measures against the best in the BIG EAST just over a month into the competitive season.
The women's meet will showcase a host of BIG EAST title contenders as the field will feature at least the top-six performers in the league in four different events. Owners of the nine fastest 200-IM times in the conference to this point will be in attendance with Seton Hall underclassmen Melody Bush (Guelph, Ontario) and Kylene Ronayne (Springfield, Pa.) currently ranking third and fifth respectively in the crowded group.
Bush and Ronayne are chasing standout Villanova freshman Gabrielle Daigneault in the event, just one of many that the newcomer has set the standard in so far this fall. Daigneault's 100-back time of 57.18 also sits atop the conference rankings, but not far ahead of Bush - the school record holder and an All-BIG EAST performer in the event last season - who stands fourth with a season-best time of 58.63.
The native Canadians are also set up to clash in the 200-back where Daigneault (2:03.04) and teammate Mary Spillane (2:06.62) have been the pace-setters, just in front of Bush in third (2:06.91).
Ronayne (4:43.02, fourth) and teammates Jane Ehret (Florida, N.Y.) (4:46.35, seventh) and Courtney Regan (Southbury, Conn.) (4:46.50, eighth) each collected a 400-IM time that ranks among the top-eight in the conference in the win over the Friars and may get their shot at Daigneault who leads an all-Villanova top-three in the event.
Ehret has also posted the team's fastest 200-fly mark this season (2:12.25), an event where the top-nine performers in the league will be present this weekend in Piscataway. The Wildcats' Fiona Hardie, who shared the 2014 Most Outstanding Female Swimmer Award with former Pirate Kerrie Kolackovsky a season ago, recorded the time to beat against LaSalle earlier this season but Seton Hall sophomores Tessa Lindner (Sun Prairie, Wisc.) and Cece Henry (St. Charles, Mo.) have been among the top competitors in the discipline as well.
At 100 yards, Lindner owns a team-best time of 59.29 that is sixth-best in the conference, slightly ahead of teammate Sydney Simpson (Tallahassee, Fla.) in seventh (59.31), but Hardie's 56.32 against Penn State last time out leads another all-Villanova top-three in the conference-wide rankings.
Simpson's 200-breast time of 2:28.04 in the opener against Montclair State still stands as the third-fastest time in the BIG EAST and the freshman is joined in the top-five by junior Megan Mallon (Glen Mills, Pa.) who clocked in at 2:29.30 at Rider. Molly Fitzpatrick of Georgetown owns the top mark currently, having reached the wall in 2:25.33 in a tri-meet at Delaware.
An All-BIG EAST honoree and silver medalist in her own right, Mallon claimed top honors in the 100-breast with a time of 1:07.32, an effort that has been bested by only Madison Day of Xavier (1:06.93) within the conference.
From the diving board, the Pirates' Gabby Signorelli (Massapequa, N.Y.) is coming off a season-best one-meter performance that earned her a trip back to the NCAA Zone A Regional Championships and will meet several divers whom she defeated to claim a pair of BIG EAST championships last winter.
The Hoyas Lauren Kahan, Sarah Jaklitsch and Cassandra Schwartz all qualified for the conference meet but only Kahan recorded a top-three finish; that coming from one-meter in what was a dominant showing for the Pirates behind Signorelli and then senior Katie Riley.
Two Scarlet Knights qualified for the NCAA Zone A meet last season but both Nicole Scott and Rebecca Gross are gone from what is now a relatively inexperienced Rutgers diving contingent.
Start-time is set for 4:00 p.m. on Friday with live results available through this LINK as well as the Meet Mobile App. Competition will resume on Saturday at 10:00 a.m.
