Tigers Coast at Easterns; Gildea Cruises in 1650

Freshman superstar. The title has been used before, but this time it definitely applied to Maureen Gildea, who finally accomplished what the rest of the undermanned Crimson squad had been trying to do all weekend.

She won a race. Not just any race, but the finals of the EAIAW 1650 freestyle, the longest and probably most grueling race of the Eastern Championships.

She won the race in a definitely decent time of 17:13.94, but since she had already qualified for Nationals at last week's Ivies, the time wasn't particularly important. Teammate Gwen Knapp said although Gildea's closest competitor kept up with her, the competition never really pushed her. "Maureen was definitely in command of the race," she added.

But Princeton took command of the meet. Behind the five-victory performance of Charlotte Tiedemann, the Tigers rolled over second-place Pitt and third-place Penn State. Pitt boasted a five-time winner as well, with Amy Jackson dominating the butterfly and middle-distance freestyle events.

In the consolation finals of the 1650 free, Kathleen McCloskey finished third for an overall ninth-place finish, which she added to her seventh in the 100 fly and an impressive, nationals-qualifying second in the 200 fly contest.

Janie Smith, third-place finisher in Saturday's 50 free, couldn't quite reproduce the magic of her victory in the Ivies' 100 IM, and finished 11th in 1:02.17.

The highly touted Crimson divers didn't dominate the Eastern competition, but Pam Stone did grab ninth in both the one-and three-meter events, while Adriana Holy recorded an 11th place finish off the low board.

Scoring at the meet stayed more than usual within the confines of the "safe" four throug six range, a fact which makes Stone's feat of moving up in the last three dives of both events even more impressive. She qualified 12th for the one-meter and 11th for the three-meter event.

Given the fact that the Crimson squad consisted of only four swimmers and the two divers, its overall tenth-place finish--out of 20 teams--is commendable, but certainly not as well as the team could have done if all the Crimson qualifiers had chosen to make the trip.