Chestnut Hill, Mass. – Freshman Tara O'Donnell (Delmar, N.Y./Bethlehem) won two events and classmate Daniel Tarbrake (Beltsville, Md./Gonzaga College High) registered a victory to lead the Le Moyne College swimming and diving teams at the New England Catholic Invitational hosted by Boston College on Friday and Saturday at the William J. Flynn Sports Complex.
Scored as dual meets, the men finished sixth out of seven teams, while the women were eighth out of nine teams. The men's field consisted of Division I foes Boston College, College of the Holy Cross, Iona College, Niagara University and Providence College and Division III Regis College, while the women's field also included Siena College and Northeast-10 rival Assumption College.
O'Donnell, whose older sister Katie '12 was a 10-time All-American for the Dolphins, earned her first collegiate victory in just the second event of her career. She captured the 100-yard backstroke on Saturday in 1:00.17. Four events later, O'Donnell was victorious in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 2:10.33. O'Donnell opened her career on Friday night with a sixth-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle in 55.09 seconds.
On the men's side, Tarbrake recorded his first career win in just his second collegiate event. In Saturday's sixth event, the 200-yard butterfly, Tarbrake touched the wall first in a time of 1:58.90, 1.78 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher. The time was the fastest by a Dolphin in the event in over eight seasons. In the last individual event of the invitational, the 100-yard butterfly, Tarbrake registered a time of 54.60 seconds to place second. Tarbrake started his collegiate career with an 11th-place finish in the 200-yard IM in 2:07.58.
Freshman Joshua Byrne (Syracuse, N.Y./West Genesee) finished in second place in each of the two diving events. He registered a score of 253.65 in the one-meter event and recorded 250.10 points in the three-meter event. Junior Tyler Olson (Warners, N.Y./West Genesee) posted three top-eight finishes over the two days. After placing eighth in the 100-yard freestyle (49.77 seconds) and the 200-yard freestyle (1:51.11), he touched the wall third in the 50-yard freestyle in 22.12 seconds. Olson was also a member of the fifth-place 200-yard freestyle relay team. The quartet of sophomore Richard Divaccaro (Woodstown, N.J./Woodstown), freshman Ronald Lowe (Middletown, N.Y./Pine Bush), senior Scott Thieke (Jamesville, N.Y./Jamesville-DeWitt) and Olson finished in 1:32.43. Junior Connor Agen (Camillus, N.Y./West Genesee) registered a pair of sixth-place finishes. In Friday night's first individual event, the 1,000-yard freestyle, Agen touched the wall in 10:37.00, while he recorded a time of 5:07.65 in the 500-yard freestyle. Thieke was 3.80 seconds behind Agen in the 500-yard freestyle to earn an eighth-place finish. Freshman Benjamin Verdi (Buffalo, N.Y./St. Joseph's) registered a fifth-place finish in the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:23.11 in his first collegiate action. Junior Greg Sanzari (Newington, Conn./Newington) added an eighth-place finish in the 400-yard IM with a time of 4:40.17.
Le Moyne returns to the pool on Saturday, November 3 at Bentley at 1:00 p.m.
