The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams wrapped up competition at the Big East Championships in Ithica, N.Y., seeing both sides walk away with noticeable achievements.
Seton Hall Athletics
The men finished third among five schools. Senior Ben Mitchell, who earned the Most Outstanding Diver award for the second year in row, completing a sweep of all four diving titles. On Wednesday, Feb. 18, the opening day of action, Mitchell captured three individual titles. Then on day three, Friday, Feb. 20, he added another gold.
Freshman Swimmer Noah Yanchulis earn a gold medal in the 200-free on day three of the competition. The two other Pirates to finish on top of the podium were senior James Logan and freshman Matt Zebrowski, who claimed victories on the last day of the competition.
Freshman Cody Wimmer made his mark finishing third in the 500-free on day two with a time of 4:32.02 which was less than two seconds from Xavier’s James Foster.
Overall the blue and white earned 690 points in the competition behind runner-up Georgetown, 763 points and winner Xavier, 904 points.
The women finished fourth among six different schools. The women had a sweep of their own with junior Gabby Signorelli winning all of her competitions. Along with Mitchell, Signorelli claimed the Most Outstanding Female Diver award for the second straight year. Signorelli defended her gold medal in three-meter on the day two and from the one-meter board on day four.
A team record was broken again as sophomores Melody Bush and Tessa Lindner, junior Megan Mallon and freshman Kat Carson finished the third 200-medley relay with a time of 1:44.46, improving on the time from last years’ event.
Megan Mallon added a silver medal to her collection in the 100-breast final. Mallon was just .04 second away from the winner Molly Fitzpatrick form Georgetown.
Tessa Linder also earned a bronze medal on the third day in the 100-fly and on the last day in the 200-fly.
The Pirates finished with 472 points behind Xavier, 555 points, runner-up Georgetown, 736.5 points and winner Villanova, 957.5 points.
Seton Hall’s diving coach Pete DeNoble was recognized as the Diving Coach of the Year for both men and women with help from Mitchell and Signorelli.
The next swimming & diving competition will be the NCAA Championships on Thursday, March 26 in Iowa City, Iowa.
Javon Glenn can be reached at javon.glenn@student.shu.edu or on twitter @javong25. For complete coverage of Seton Hal athletics, follow @setoniansports.
