Senior Day: A defeat for Purdue

Senior Day at the Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatics Center Saturday meant the final dual meet of Heath Montgomery's career. Facing Purdue meant bragging rights were on the line. The Hoosiers made sure that Montgomery went out in style -- bragging rights and all -- as they defeated the No. 21 Boilermakers 136.5-106.5. \n"It was a huge confidence builder for us," junior David Schulze said. "We really wanted to come in and finish our season strong and get Heath another victory over Purdue."\nThe Hoosiers jumped to an early lead with a victory in the 400-yard medley relay. Backstroker Matt Leach, breaststroker Schulze, butterflier Murph Halasz and freestyler Claes Andersson raced to a season-best and sixth-best in school history time of 3:18.25.\nRichard Bryant extended the lead in the 1,000-yard freestyle, finishing first in 9:21.32. Barely out of the water, Bryant then competed in the 200-yard freestyle but finished in last place, nearly six seconds behind his season-best time set last weekend. The Boilermakers capitalized and took the top two spots. \n"One of the regrets we have is we probably should have turned (Bryant) loose in the 1,000 and not worried about the 200," Kirchner said. "But he showed last week he can swim both, but then he got a lot more rest."\nThe Hoosiers quickly quelled the Boilermaker rally and never looked back. Dale Ramsey, Mike Payne and Nicholas Burgess finished 1-2-3 in the 50-yard freestyle with times of 20.59, 20.76 and 20.90, respectively.\n"The 50-free is obviously a pretty big door to bust through," Kirchner said. They didn't swim perfect races, but in those top-three finishes, those are all lifetime bests for those three guys.\n"You can't ask for much more than that."\nSchulze then won the 200-yard individual medley (1:51.81), and Halasz followed in second place 54 hundredths of a second later. \nHalasz easily won the 200-yard butterfly (1:48.71), and Montgomery outraced Purdue's Tamas Bessenyei by 14 hundredths of a second for second place.\nIU next took the top two spots in its fourth consecutive event with a 1-2 finish in the 100-yard freestyle. Andersson won the event with a season-best 45.04 time, followed by Ramsey's 46.14. \nBryant returned to the pool for a third race in the 500-yard freestyle. Having time to rest between races paid off, as Bryant's first-place time of 4:31.02 was more than three seconds better than his nearest competition. \nSchulze knocked off Bessenyei in the 200-yard breaststroke in the closest race of the meet. Schulze touched the wall at a season best 2:00.24, only two hundredths of a second ahead of Bessenyei.\n"We're winning the close races. Our cohesiveness as a team has really helped everybody with that." \nPurdue won its third swimming event of the meet on the last event, the 400-yard freestyle relay. The Hoosier squad of Montgomery, Andersson, Payne and Ramsey were initially listed as the victors but were disqualified when it was ruled that Ramsey left the block early. Nevertheless, Ramsey said he was thrilled to beat Purdue.\n"I feel great going home today knowing that we beat them, knowing that we dominated them," Ramsey said.\nOn the diving side of the competition, Marc Carlton, Adam Hazes and Alex Burns took the top three spots off the three-meter boards and went 2-3-4 off the one-meter boards. \n"It was a little bit rough off of the one-meter, and the three-meter was outstanding; we really dove well," diving head coach Jeff Huber said. For us to come back and go 1-2-3 on the three-meter was a nice way to finish up the dual meet season and give us a little bit of an emotional boost going into the championship part of the season"