Home dual meet features Notre Dame

The IU women's swimming and diving team will face off tonight with No. 17 Notre Dame at the Counsilman Billingsley Aquatic Center. This will be the second dual meet of the season for IU.\n"Notre Dame is going to be tough," IU coach Dorsey Tierney said. "They have a really good dual meet team. We typically don't have a lot of speed this time of year, so other than winning, I would really like to see what type of grit our team has."\nLast year, Tierney took the squad up against a tough Irish team, and they came away with the win in the last relay. IU pulled it off by a small margin of eight points.\nDiving coach Jeff Huber sent one diver last weekend to the SMU Classic, and that was freshman Lindsey Weigle. Weigle placed fourth in the 3-meter springboard, and Huber was expective of that type of performance this time of year.\n"She was throwing some harder dives that other people weren't, and I think that will ultimately help her in the end," Huber said.\nThis will be the team's first trip back home since the Evansville meet when they were victorious. Of course, they have more of a challenge on their hands with the Irish coming to town, but Tierney feels the home atmosphere should help out.\n"A pool's a pool, but one advantage is not having to travel," Tierney said. "The athletes can go to class on (today), and we can have morning workout. It's just a matter of we can stay in our groove."\nOne aspect of the team's performance that was strong last weekend was the relays. The relays at SMU were led by freshman Leila Vaziri. Tierney said she was really impressed with her effort along with the entire relays last weekend.\n"It was really nice to see those relays step up, and really in most cases we had three out of four people step up," Tierney said.\nSenior Megan Medendorp was a part of the 400-yard freestyle relay team that really stepped up at SMU. Medendorp has high hopes for the next meet.\n"Notre Dame was a big challenge last year, and it will be this year," said Medendorp. "I've heard they have a lot of good freshmen, as do we, so it will be a good battle."\nAlso last weekend, the team competed in the Indiana Intercollegiates in West Lafayette. The team also finished third, and freshman Annica Lofstedt and sophomore Kristen Bradley were two standouts at the meet. Lofstedt came in first in the 100-yard butterfly, and Bradley finished first in the 200-yard individual medley nearly two seconds ahead of the second place finisher. Tierney also stressed how impressed she has been with the work of Bradley.\n"She just continues to be in a nice groove right now, and she is by far the best she's ever been at IU," said Tierney. \nAnother top performer from last week's competition was senior Erin Gorlesky, who is also a member of the stellar 400-yard freestyle relay team. Gorlesky said she ranks this meet highly thus far.\n"This meet is our first real test as a team, and it's going to take everyone working hard," Gorlesky said.\nIU is 2-1 against Notre Dame in the history of the school, and is looking to add to its win record. Tierney said she feels IU has looked promising thus far even though it is early in the season.\n-- Contact staff writer Chris Hopper at chopper@indiana.edu.