Swimmers impress at annual Blue-Gold meet

Waves of change engulfed the Panthers’ swimming team as it stormed into the 2002 season with… Waves of change engulfed the Panthers’ swimming team as it stormed into the 2002 season with the Blue-Gold intrasquad scrimmage Friday. With head coach Chuck Knoles now at the helm of both the men’s and women’s squads, the Panthers made the most of the meet by toppling 18 of the 28 records for the annual season opening competition.

The Gold teams on both sides of the gender line emerged victorious. Men’s Gold defeated the Blue team 151-128, while the women’s Gold squeaked by the Blue team by a margin of 142-133.

Knoles, who in addition to handling the men’s coaching duties assumed the women’s head coaching position after last season, was astounded by the effort both squads displayed.

“I was floored by the overall performance of the women,” Knoles said. “Emily Colley, Carolyne Savini and Jenny Livingstone among the returners were very impressive.”

Colley, Savini and Livingstone all set multiple records on Friday. Colley, who last season was the lone Panther representative in the women’s NCAA championship, shattered a 7-year-old 1,000-freestyle record by more than 10 seconds with a time of 10 minutes, 12.61 seconds.

Savini broke the 100-backstroke meet record with a time of 58.31 seconds and later set the standard in the 200-backstroke by swimming the event in 2:05.15.

Livingstone teamed up with Whitney Severino, Ryan Redman and Kelli Tielking to swim the 200-medley relay in 1:47.56, which was more than two seconds faster than the previous record. Later, Livingstone put her Gold team on the path to victory by swimming the 50-freestyle in 24.28 seconds and the 100-freestyle in 53.09.

On the men’s side, the Gold team captain Eric Limkemann set the pace with an opening victory in the 1,000-freestyle.

Limkemann, a junior, will be depended on to provide the team leadership that Knoles expects from his older and more accomplished swimmers.

“Our lost leadership in our seniors that graduated will have to be covered by our team captains Eric Limkemann and Mike Grube,” Knoles said.

Grube led the Blue team by breaking the meet record in the 100-freestyle, as he zipped back to the wall in 46.06 seconds. In the last event of the afternoon, Grube broke the 50-yard freestyle segment record of the 200-relay with a time of 21.06 seconds.

The surprise splash of the afternoon was made by freshman Amy Miteff, who broke the women’s Blue-Gold records in the 200-freestyle and 200-butterfly with respective times of 1:55.29 and 2:05.77.

“Of the freshman ladies I would have to say that Amy Miteff swam crazy fast for this time of the year,” Knoles said.

Miteff didn’t end the impressive showing with her performances in the 200-free and butterfly, as she teamed up with Kate Butrie, Tielking and Livingstone to set the record in the 200-freestyle by stopping the clock at 1:39.67.

In the diving competition, freshman Erin Leisey emerged victorious from 1-meter up with a score of 211.05, while junior Matthew Schwartz finished first in the 3-meter event.

With his streak of six consecutive men’s Big East championships in the books, Knoles will be hard pressed to turn out the same success in the women’s performances as he has in the past with the men’s.

As evidenced by the effort that both teams put into the intrasquad meet, a lack of motivation will not be one of Knoles’ problems heading into the 2002-03 season.

“I didn’t have to say much [about the meet] to them,” Knoles said. “The athletes knew the first travel trip of the season was on the line – our trip to Seattle to swim against our first PAC-10 team. I think that was motivation enough to put some pressure on them. I think it worked.”