With the rest of the Boston University swimming and diving teams starting to enjoy their offseason, BU divers Victor Paguia and Kristen Stratton have only begun to rake in the awards, as both earned Top Diver honors at the Eastern College Athletic Conference Championships this past weekend.
Paguia, who just last week was named the Men’s Outstanding Diver of the Year at the America East Championships, won the three-meter dive in the championships and placed second in the one-meter dive. Stratton, a senior, won the women’s three-meter dive while BU freshman Megan White followed with a fifth-place showing.
While the Terriers didn’t send either of their whole teams, 29 squads competed on each side in the championships.
Track
The BU men’s and women’s track teams finished third and sixth, respectively, at the New England Intercollegiate Indoor Track and Field Championships this past weekend at the BU Track and Tennis Center.
The BU men finished third of 30 teams, winning the 500-meter race, the 5,000-meter run and the 4×800-meter relay race to finish behind only the University of Connecticut (162 points) and the University of Rhode Island (86).
Senior Dan Coval won the 5,000 with a time of 14:17.13, beating the closest competitor by more than eight seconds. Junior Andre Nacaxe, who won the America East title in the 500, claimed the top spot in the same event this past weekend (1:02.27), earning 10 points toward BU’s final score of 68.
The 4×800-meter relay team took first with a time of 7:41.69 to help the Terriers earn their second-straight top-five finish at the meet.
BU also ran strong in the 200-meter dash (Matt Howard, sixth), 1-mile run (Jochen Dieckfoss, second), 1,000-meter run (Phil Putis, second), 800-meter run (Nick Goodman, sixth) and the 4×400 relay (second).
Led by freshman Abbey Sadowski – who won the 1,000-meter run (2:54.22) – the BU women’s team placed sixth, six spots higher than last year. Marisa Ryan also turned in an impressive performance, taking second in the 3,000 meters (9:44.34).
Sophomore Vicki Lopez, who finished eighth in the 500-meter run last year, improved to sixth this year, while Erin Cadden placed fifth in the 55-meter hurdles (8.60) and Julia Nazzer followed up Sadowski with a fourth-place finish in the 1,000. Amy Dannwolf also took fourth in the 800.
In the field events, Mary Ellen Bingham leaped 12.12 meters to snag second in the triple jump.
women’s tennis
As diving and track seasons draw to a close, tennis season is picking up. And BU women’s tennis coach Lesley Sheehan has big plans for her Terriers, who improved to 5-1 on the spring season after shutting out Stony Brook University 7-0 on Sunday.
“Some of the teams we are playing are nationally ranked, and our goal is to be ranked as well,” she said. “We used to be on the national list and our goal is to be on it again.”
With their win over the Seawolves (1-4), the Terriers (now 3-0 in America East play) have shut out all three of their conference opponents so far this season, posting 7-0 wins over the University of New Hampshire on Feb. 1 and Binghamton University on Feb. 7.
“We want to make sure we beat our conference opponents,” Sheehan said.
Sheehan knows that the rest of the season may not come quite as easily as Sunday’s victory, with matches coming up against Florida Atlantic University, Yale University and Brown University.
“We’re going to be challenged this season,” she said. “We’re going to have to go after them.”
Though Sheehan is looking toward the future, she said the key is not to think too far ahead. For a team that is going for its 10th straight conference title, it can’t afford to slip.
“The team just has to keep going one match at a time,” she said. “They have to keep their focus, keep playing doubles well and just keep going one at a time.”
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