INDIANAPOLIS – Arabella Lee and Nolan Danus combined for three record-breaking swims on Friday to put an exclamation mark on the third day of the BIG EAST Swimming and Diving Championships.
 
The women's team are still holding onto first on the team standings with 1,079 points followed by UConn (1021.5) and Georgetown (803.5). The Villanova men are still fourth with 352 points. They sit 31.5 points out of the top three, just behind Seton Hall (383.5).
 
As a whole, Villanova earned eight medals on the day, two of those being gold for Lee and Molly Benson. Four Wildcats earned NCAA B-cut times during the evening finals, including Lee, Danus, Meghan Tiernan and Audrey Pastorek.
 
Lee reset Villanova's 100 Fly not once but twice on Friday, knocking down the marks just eight hours apart. The sophomore posted a 53.90 in the prelims, giving her the top spot heading into the evening's finals. That mark bypassed Alexa Fabbri's time of 54.02 that she set in the finals of the 2016 BIG EAST Championships. The sophomore kept her food on the gas, kicking off the evening's finals with a 53.31 time that gives her an NCAA B-cut time.
 
After winning the 400 IM with the fastest time in Villanova history on Thursday, Danus continued his tear of individual medley performances. He clocked in with a B-cut time of 3:49.63 for a 400 IM silver medal, passing Justin Cucchi's previous record of 3:50.91set at the conference championships in 2020. Danus' finals time was nearly four seconds better than the 3:53.41 he recorded in the morning. He was joined on the podium by freshman Ben Tunila who took bronze with a time of 3:52.30 to become the fourth-fastest Wildcat in team history.
 
Benson went wire-to-wire on the day as the top seed in the 200 Free, punching in a 1:48.54 to go into the evening as the top seed. She cut .46 off her time with a winning 1:48.08 to earn the program's 17^th title in the event, edging Xavier's Clara Keiser by .58.
 
Meghan Tiernan threw down a personal best in the 400 IM with a 4:17.29, making her the sixth fastest performer in team history. She cut a huge four seconds of her prelim time of 4:21.37 that gave her the third seed for the evening. The freshman ended up touching .73 out of first.
 
The 100 Back brought a new personal best time of 53.82 for Pastorek, giving her an NCAA B-cut. Her performance also moved her to third on the program's performance list. Th senior was a mere .61 out of first place. Maggie Kleinsmith recorded the fourth top-three finish in the 100 Breast at BIG EASTs with a 1:03.15, good enough for bronze. On the springboard, Alexa Fegley and Michelle Kasulka finished seventh (263.05) and eighth (250.55) in the evening finals.
 
Villanova picked up silver in the women's 400 Medley Relay with Pastorek, Kleinsmith, Lee and Carlotta Colomer Guasch combining for a time of 3:42.68, the 10^th fastest time in program history.  On the men's side to close the evening, Charlie Hinckley, Henry Halloran, Sam Randall and Patrick Hemingway posted a 3:20.65 time that landed them fifth. Hinckley had an opening backstroke split of 49.83 for a new personal best that also made him the sixth fastest performer in team history.
 
The championships wrap up on Saturday with one final day of action. Prelims for the 200 Back, 100 Free, 200 Breast and 200 Fly start at 10 a.m. with men's 1-meter diving prelims at 1 p.m. The finals get started with the 1650 later in the afternoon before the evening session begins at 5:45 with the 400 Free Relay closing out the week.  All action and awards will once again air live on the BIG EAST Digital Network on FloSports Presented by Invesco QQQ which can be found at this link. Fans can also follow the team on X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram feeds at @novaswimdive for all of the latest up-to-the-minute updates.