Boston College
BIG EAST Championship
Women's Swimming And Diving Places Eighth In Conference
February 20, 2000 | Swimming
Feb. 20, 2000
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. - Boston College placed eighth in the BIG EAST Conference's 13-team championships held February 17-19 in Uniondale, N.Y. Notre Dame won the competition with 829.5 points. BC's 229 points fell only 16.5 points shy of seventh-place Connecticut.
On the final day of competition, Lauren Schwartz (Mt. Laurel, N.J.) placed a team-high fourth in the 200-yard butterfly, swimming 2:05.83, missing the National "B" cut by just under three seconds. Sophomore Brianne Sullivan (Staten Island, N.Y.) placed 12th overall in the 200-yard backstroke consolation round, passing two swimmers on the final leg. Classmate Alexis Kostopoulos (Marblehead, Mass.) swam 2:23.48 in the 200 breaststroke, placing third in the consolation and 10th overall. Freshman Nina Suryoutomo's (Fremont, Calif.) effort of 51.89 in the 100 free was good enough for ninth.
Lauren Schwartz earned a seasonal best time of 57.94 in the 100 butterfly consolation heat for 13th overall. On the same night. Alexis Kostopoulos swam 1:06.05 for sixth in the 100 breaststroke. She had clocked 1:05.79 in the morning swim. Sullivan, who broke her own 100-yard backstroke record in the preliminary heats with a time of 58.69, finished seventh overall in the final at 59.05. Suryoutomo was ninth overall (58.32), setting a new school record in the same event. Also qualifying for the ECAC championships Feb. 24-26 was senior captain Kendra Johnson (Weston, Conn.) with her 1:01.12 effort in the 100 back.
The 200-yard freestyle relay contingent of Nina Suryoutomo, Alexis Kostopoulos, Nicole Duffy (Chesterfield, Mo.) and Caitlin Klick (Chelmsford, Mass.) turned in a time of 1:37.50, the second-fastest in BC history, for eighth overall. Success continued into the 400 medley relay. Brianne Sullivan led off the backstroke leg with a 58.96 split, followed by Kostopoulos, Schwartz and Suryoutomo, who finished seventh with a time of 3:55.09. The same swimmers landed seventh in the 200 medley relay, clocking 1:48.43. Duffy, Kostopoulos, Klick and Suryoutomo combined for a 3:31.01 effort in the 400 free relay, placing seventh overall on the final night of competition.
Shannon Lents (Boca Raton, Fla.) placed seventh on the one-meter board after totaling 365.75 points in the final round. She was also 12th on the three-meter board. Kristen Gray (West Boylston, Mass.) placed 12th in the one-meter (338.10).
Freshman Christa Ehlers (Bay Shore, N.Y.) held off a pair of West Virginia swimmers to finish 16th overall in the 400 IM with her time of 4:35.03. Fellow frosh Melissa Pierce (The Woodlands, Texas) was BC's highest finisher (22nd) in the 200 freestyle, swimming 1:55.11.
BC competes next Thursday-Saturday (Feb. 24-26) at the ECAC Championships.
