Results / Dive-by-Dive Scoring / Purdue Notables / Meet Central /// Photos: Prelims / Finals
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Five Boilermakers climbed or joined the programs' all-time leaderboards with career-best showings, highlighting day two of the Purdue Invitational at the Morgan J. Burke Aquatic Center.
Morgan Meixner was victorious in 1-meter diving with a career-best score of 309.55 that moved the junior into 10th place in program history. She teamed with Samm Reese (3rd) and Emily Bretscher (4th) to give the Purdue women three of the top four finishers in the event, accounting for 51 team points.
Taite Kitchel posted career-best times in the 400 individual medley (4:17.07, 5th) and 100 butterfly (53.14, 3rd) in the first two events of the morning prelims, moving into the top five in program history. She qualified for the A final of both events, but opted to focus on the 100 fly in the finals, finishing fifth.
Trent Pellini was a two-time A finalist for the Purdue men, qualifying among the top eight in the prelims of the 100 breaststroke and 100 fly. The freshman accounted for 22 team points Friday and moved into eighth place in program history in the 100 breast.
Jinq En Phee and Cady Farlow finished 2-3 in the 100 breast behind Olympian Lilly King of Indiana. Phee moved into second place in program history with a time of 1:00.35 in the finals. Farlow dropped her season-best time by 54 hundredths of a second from the prelims to the finals Friday.
After two full days of competition, both Purdue teams are in fourth place in the team scoring. The No. 20 Purdue women (368) trail third-place Virginia Tech (377) by just nine points.
Kaearsten Meitz (2nd in 200 free), Marat Amaltdinov (5th in 100 breast), Joe Young (7th in 100 back), Emmy Rawson (7th in 100 fly) and Danielle Auckley (8th in 200 free) were also A finalists for the Boilermakers. Young took third in the B final of the 100 fly to join Pellini as Boilermakers to score in a pair of individual events Friday.
Auckley contributed to both of the Purdue women's third-place relay teams, quartets that posted top-10 times in program history. Young and Pellini swam the first two legs on the Purdue men's 200 medley relay team that posted the eighth-fastest time in program history.
Kitchel was the lone Boilermaker to account a Purdue season-best time in a pair of events Friday. Adam Noens (400 IM) and Jackie Smailis (100 back) posted team season-best times/B Cuts while scoring in B finals.
Hudson Bursch (D final of 400 IM) and Natalie Mudd (C final of 100 back) both won their races in the finals. Mudd moved up to ninth place in program history with her career-best time.
Batuhan Hakan (400 IM), Megan Johnson (200 free) and Natalie Myers (400 IM) joined Bretscher and Pellini as Purdue freshmen to score in an individual event Friday.
The Purdue Invitational concludes Saturday with prelims at 10 a.m. ET, platform diving at noon and finals at 6 p.m.