SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Indiana State swimming and diving competed in the Dennis Starke Relays held at Notre Dame tonight (Oct. 6) in South Bend, Ind.

This was the second time in program history that the Sycamores competed in the relay meet. This meet consists of multiple nontraditional relay events and welcomed many different opponents including Louisville, Oakland, Notre Dame, Olivet Nazarene and ISU.

"Today was a great step forward for our program. We saw a young program learn how to race even when you're tired and that's a hard thing to do. We had a tough practice this morning, got on the bus, and came straight to Notre Dame," said head coach Matt Leach.

The Sycamores started off the day with a fifth place finish in the 100 yard butterfly relay as Martina Marks, Jacquie Price and Megan Schade posted a time of 2:57.86.

Indiana State picked up the pace in their second event of the day as Kendall Hansen, Marlene Pavlu Lewin and Madison Brand posted a fourth place finish in the 100 yard backstroke relay.

Following this event the Sycamores began to fall off struggling to match the pace of their tough competition.

"We have some more things to address as we move forward. The fundamentals of fast turns and attacking the front end of races are some of the little things that made the teams we swam today really good."

Indiana State placed sixth in most events with all members of the young Sycamores squad swimming strong and competing hard.

The Sycamores continued to fight throughout the meet and gave what proved to be a very good Oakland team a neck and neck battle until the very end.

Laura Fulton and Mckenzie Plummer also showed well for the Sycamores in the one meter diving competition with a combined total of 270.85 and a seventh place finish.

"I think the team did a great job across the board and was solid all the way through. We just started to get tired toward the end of the meet, but we need to learn how to compete that way and out of that we saw people step up," said Leach.

The Sycamores finished the day in fourth place with Oakland narrowly edging them on the scoreboard.

Indiana State will be back in action again tomorrow (Oct. 7) as they face off with the Flames of UIC in Chicago, Ill. at 2 p.m.

For the latest information on the Sycamore Swimming and Diving team, make sure to check out GoSycamores.com. You can also find the team on social media including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.