Feb. 8, 2007
CARBONDALE, Ill. -
MVC Day 1 Results
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With senior leadership from Kyle Pullman and Jamie Haseman, the Illinois State swimmers earned 176.5 points during the first day of the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Championships in Carbondale, Ill. The point total was enough to place the Redbirds in third place, falling short to Southern Illinois (224) and Missouri State (176.5). Northern Iowa currently stand in fourth with 123 points, followed by Evansville in fifth with 74 points.
Despite a couple of races not going in favor of the `Birds, head coach Steve Paska is content with the results after day one and looks forward to what the second day of competition will bring.
"Today was sort of a mixed bag for the team," said Paska. "We have a lot of things to be proud of, but in order to be ready to perform well tomorrow, we have to overcome a couple of obstacles we faced throughout the day today.
"Overall, the swimmers performed extremely well, and we have a number of strong events coming up tomorrow that should help us catch up to the top-two teams."
Day one of competition was full of personal and season best swims for the Redbirds. The 200 freestyle relay team composed of Pullman, Kathleen Borkovec, Tiffany Rentner and Valerie Zaleski swam a season best race with a time of 1:37.23. The lead off split time of 23.89 was just short of a personal best for Pullman, but was good for a season best time. A major point scoring event for Illinois State was the 500-yard freestyle, in which four swimmers placed in the top-eight during morning prelims. Haseman's 5:06.33 swim during the morning preliminaries was not only a season best time, but a personal best time. Teammate Erin Woodruff placed seventh for the `Bird with a time just over 5:14. In the 50-yard freestyle, Rentner swam a personal best time of 24.96, and Jena Allie swam a 25.02, which was also a personal best.
Competition will resume tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. with preliminary heats of the 200 medley relay, 400 individual medley, 100 butterfly, 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke, 100 backstroke, 1-meter diving and the 800 freestyle relay. Finals will start at 6 p.m.
Results for the Valley Championships will be available after each session on the SIU athletics website at www.siusalukis.com or at the Valley website at www.mvc.org.
