Streak ends at Penn State

Despite great performances from both the swimming and diving teams, the streak of five wins came to end against Penn State. The IU women's swimming and diving program fell to the Nittany Lions 211-158 in a two-part competition Friday and Saturday at the Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center.\nIU struggled to keep up with Penn State Friday, as the Nittany Lions capitalized on the depth of their squad. By the end of the first day, the Hoosiers claimed five titles with sophomore Leila Vaziri winning three events. They ended the night with PSU leading 84-62. \nIn the first event of the night, the IU 200-yard medley relay team took second and posted the eighth-fastest time in the school's history. The team, led by Vaziri, junior Kristen Bradley, senior Erin Smith and sophomore Annica Lofstedt, posted a time of 1:43.85. Two events later, the competition of the night occurred when Penn State's Big Ten champion of 2004 in the 100-yard backstroke Sarah Haupt took on Vaziri, who was recently named National College Swimmer of the Week by www.CollegeSwimming.com. Vaziri took first place and hit a B-cut time on the event, which qualifies her for the NCAA Championships.\nIn the next two events, IU hoped to gain momentum and took first place in both the 400-yard individual medley and the 200-yard freestyle relay. IU earned another B-cut time and ninth-best time in school history with 1:33.55.\nIn the second day, the diving squad lit up the board with phenomenal scores coming from senior Cassandra Cardinell and freshman Christina Loukas and swimmer Vaziri grabbing two more top-place finishes. In the one-meter diving IU took the top four positions with Cardinell taking top place with a score 308.70 and Loukas taking second with 294.45. Both scores cleared the zone qualifying standard for the NCAA Diving Championships. In the three-meter diving competition, IU diving showed its dominance as freshman Christina Loukas posted a new IU record of 354.00.\n"(Loukas) is just scratching the surface on her performance level," diving head coach Jeff Huber said. "We are starting to feel very confident heading into the Big Ten and (need to) start focusing on our game plan heading into the Championships."\nIU claimed only two events for the day with one coming from an individual performance by Vaziri in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 2:00.76, clearing the NCAA provisional time.