Indiana
Carles Coll Marti Posts 1:50.77 200 Breast As Indiana Men, Louisville Women Win SMU Classic
SMU Classic
It was a fast weekend at the annual SMU Classic, as schools headed down to Dallas to take on this uniquely formatted early season meet.
At the SMU Classic, six men’s and six women’s teams bring eight swimmers and one diver, with each program getting one relay and two individual entries per event over the two-day affair. Individual races are swum as an ‘A’ flight and a ‘B’ flight—each heat scores, though there are more points on offer in the ‘A’ final.
Men’s Recap
Results:
- Indiana – 326
- Louisville – 308
- Virginia Tech – 303
- Auburn – 261
- Texas A&M – 233
- SMU – 231
This meet often produces some fast early-season swims and this year was no exception. Virginia Tech grad student Carles Coll Marti threw down a 1:50.77 in the 200 breaststroke, smashing the pool and meet records. It’s his first 200 breast of the season and he’s nearly seven seconds faster than he was this time last season. It’s a time that would’ve easily made the 2024 NCAA ‘A’ final and finished 7th there (Coll Marti was third in 1:49.99—his second sub-1:50 outing).
Coll Marti also popped a lifetime-best 19.41 to win the ‘B’ flight of the 50 freestyle, which also would’ve won the ‘A’ flight by .05 seconds ahead of Auburn’s Kalle Makinen. The Hokie dropped a 50.72 100 breast split on the 400 medley relay, and 23.06 on the meet record-setting 200 medley relay (1:23.60). In the rest of his individual events, he posted a 51.61 100 breast and 1:42.60 200 IM.
In a preview of the coming 100 breast NCAA ‘A’ final, Coll Marti faced off against Louisville’s Denis Petrashov and Indiana’s Brian Benzing. After Coll Marti led the way at the 50 (24.13), Petrashov pulled ahead on the back half and took the win in 51.50, breaking the meet record (51.95) and Nic Fink’s pool record (51.59). Coll Marti took second in 51.61 while Benzing was 51.92 for third, also under the former meet record.
Coll Marti ran into Owen McDonald in the 200 IM. The junior and Arizona State transfer was sensational at this meet, sweeping his four individual events and scoring a meet-leading 64 points. He opened by swimming a lifetime-best 3:41.69 in the 400 IM, dropping from the 3:44.27 he swam at the 2022 NC State Invite. Then, McDonald popped a 45.35 100 backstroke, breaking the meet record. He swam a lifetime best 4:18.10 in the 500 freestyle before swimming a pool and meet record 1:42.09 in the 200 IM to wrap up his meet.
Other first-year Hoosiers at the Classic included Miroslav Knedla and diver Joshua Sollenberger. Given the star-studded nature of Indiana’s transfer class, Knedla’s flown a bit under the radar, but he made an impression in his collegiate and yards debut. The Czech Olympian swam 1:39.88 to win the 200 backstroke, missing Aaron Piersol’s meet record, which has stood since 2008, by a tenth. Knedla also led off Indiana’s winning 400 medley relay in 45.27, faster than McDonald’s 45.35 to win the individual event. Knedla clocked 45.37 to win the ‘B’ flight of the individual 100 backstroke, two-hundredths behind McDonald’s time in the ‘A’ flight to solidify the two will be a dangerous backstroke duo this season.
The Hoosiers won the meet with 326 points. Freshman Gregg Enoch scored 44 points and won the 200 fly (1:43.14) to help Louisville edge out ACC rivals Virginia Tech for second place by five points—308 to 303.
The Auburn Tigers took fourth with 261 points, well ahead of the battle between Texas A&M and SMU for fifth. The Aggies scored 233 points, beating SMU—led by graduate student Jack Hoagland in his final year of eligibility—by two.
Women’s Recap
Results:
- Louisville – 329
- Auburn – 294
- Texas A&M – 293
- Miami (FL) – 278
- Virginia Tech – 253
- SMU – 227
The Louisville women claimed the overall victory by a comfortable margin, beating Auburn by 35 points. They leaped out to the lead by the end of the first day of competition. The Cardinals were strong across the board, logging plenty of top two and top three finishes, but their event wins came not from the sprint events—where we’re used to seeing them shine—but in the 200s and 400 IM.
Senior Kim Herkle earned the first win of the meet for the Cardinals in the 400 IM, clocking 4:09.67, less than a second from her lifetime best of 4:08.94 from 2024 NCAAs. Herkle also won the 200 breast (2:09.88) and was the Cardinals’ top scorer of the meet. Louisville’s other event win came in the 800 free relay, where Summer Cardwell (1:46.15), Fernanda Gomes Celidonio (1:46.20), Tristen Ulett (1:46.83), and Paige Hetrick (1:48.28) won in 7:07.46, over two seconds ahead of the Aggies.
This isn’t to say that Louisville’s sprint events weren’t strong. Freshman Caroline Larsen had arguably their best swim of the meet, winning the ‘B’ flight of the 50 freestyle in 22.16, which she matched anchoring the 200 medley relay. Gabi Albiero posted a 22.40 for third in the event, then swam 52.49 for second in the 100 fly and split 22.11 on the 200 free relay.
Miami got a boost in the standings from Mia Vallee returning from an Olympic redshirt year and they were also impressive in the pool. The Hurricanes have a stacked freshman class and at this meet, it was Ashlyn Massey’s time to shine as she took down the 200 butterfly school record and won the event in 1:56.55, beating Olivia Theall by .09 seconds.
Their 2024 NCAA qualifier Giulia Carvalho also looked strong, posting season bests of 22.06 and 51.87 to win the 50 free and 100 butterfly, then swimming a personal best of 48.56 to win the 100 freestyle.
Virginia Tech’s Carmen Weiler Sastre was on fire over the two-day meet. She scored the most points of any woman at the meet (55 points) as she matched Carvalho with two individual event wins. Weiler Sastre swept the backstrokes with new personal bests; first, she swam 52.17 in the 100 backstroke, dropping .61 seconds from 2024 ACCs.
She swam 1:52.55 in the 200 backstroke, setting a pool record in addition to her win and personal best. It’s her first PB in the event since 2022, when she swam 1:52.97 at the Ohio State Invite. She swam PBs in the 50/100/200 backstroke at the meet, completing the trifecta with a 24.49 lead-off in the 200 medley relay.
Graduate student Chloe Stepanek gave the Aggies their first event win in the Blaire Anderson-era. She won the 200 freestyle on Day 1, swimming 1:44.22 to win the event by nearly two seconds. Hayden Miller added another event win in the 500 free, swimming 4:43.39.
The Auburn women finished second overall, powered by their relays. They opened the meet by winning the 400 medley relay as Polina Nevmovenko held off Stepanek on the freestyle leg to win in 3:33.41. They also won the 200 medley relay and 200 freestyle relay, swimming 1:37.25 in the former and 1:29.50 in the latter. By winning the 200 freestyle relay—the last event of the meet—the Tigers jumped ahead of the Aggies and beat them by one point for second place.
As the No. 5 Oregon Ducks prepare to face off against the No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers with a bid to the College Football Playoff National Championship Game on the line, ticket prices for the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in Mercedez-Benz Stadium have increased.
Though Duck fans were outnumbered in the previous playoff quarterfinal against Texas Tech at the Orange Bowl in Miami, a Big Ten rematch might drum up more fans wearing green at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
That increase in visiting fans, plus the importance of this game, can be seen through the surging prices for tickets on event websites.
Current Prices for Peach Bowl Tickets
The cheapest tickets to get into the Peach Bowl start at standing room only, with a $166.50 price from Ticketmaster and a $178 price on StubHub.
This total for standing room has decreased since allotment tickets sold out on Monday, with Oregon Ducks on Sports Illustrated reporting $184 for standing-room only on StubHub.
Seats behind both teams’ benches have almost the same amount of seats still open, with the cheapest ticket behind the Ducks’ bench sit around the club 130 section in row 34 for $628.32 on StubHub. Ticketmaster has a $638 price tag per ticket in the same section a few rows up, which the website states is discounted from an over $1,000 original resale listing.
The most affordable sections according to both websites is the upper decks with sections 342 through 350 on the Oregon bench side selling in the $250-$300 range a piece. The highest-priced ticket, according to Ticketmaster, sits on the side of the Indiana bench in section 110 in the club, with a price of $4,760. However, there are several club level tickets with price tags well over a grand.
Oregon’s Ticket Allotment Sold Out Early
At the beginning of the week, the allotted tickets for Oregon fans to the Peach Bowl had officially sold out through the Oregon Athletic Department. According to the Peach Bowl, this is the 26th time the game has sold out of initial ticket inventory in it’s last 29 kickoffs.
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Comparing Peach Bowl Tickets to Oregon’s Other Playoff Games
In terms of ticket prices, the Peach Bowl turnout likely will become the most expensive postseason game for Oregon this season. For the Orange Bowl in Miami, Vivid Seats reported that the get-in price dropped to $39 a ticket.
The Oregon crowd for that showdown was roughly 25 percent compared to 75 percent Texas Tech fans, with many empty seats seen throughout Hard Rock Stadium. Furthermore, the lowest cost for tickets in terms of Oregon’s first round playoff game against James Madison at Autzen Stadium also reached around $50 with only a few hours before kickoff.
The Hoosiers and the Ducks will kickoff at 4:30 p.m. PT from Mercedenz-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.
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Indiana football: Holy water sprinkled at Big Ten championship, Rose Bowl
Watch Indiana grad sprinkle Bloomington holy water before Big Ten title, Rose Bowl
When photographer Garrett Ewald flew in from New York for the Big Ten Football championship at Lucas Oil Stadium, he had no plans of pouring an 8-ounce bottle of holy water onto the Indiana end zone, water pumped from a well at a Catholic retreat center in Bloomington where the liquid has long been touted as having spiritual and healing properties.
He, admittedly, was a tad nervous that “someone might tackle me and call Homeland Security or something” as he nonchalantly sprinkled the holy water on Indiana football’s sideline and end zone before they took on Ohio State.
But his heart got the best of him. His roots got the best of him; he’s an IU grad. The idea of that water got the best of him. “What the hell?” said Ewald, who was on the field to shoot photos for The Bloomingtonian. “You never know.”
Earlier that day, Ewald had visited Mother of the Redeemer Retreat Center a few miles west of Bloomington, located on a hilly, lush green, peaceful property where people have gathered to pray, to heal and to attend retreats for more than 30 years.
Ewald was brought there by his friend and longtime IU senior associate athletics director Harold Mauro, whose grandchild is buried on the property. For years, Mauro has been devoted to the center, doing maintenance and upkeep at the place he and those who love it call “the farm.”
Mauro not only spent 22 years as athletics administrator at IU, he played football for IU the last time the team made the Rose Bowl in 1968. He was a part of nine of IU’s 10 bowl games as a player, assistant coach or administrator.
“And so we were there with Harold visiting. My other friends were maybe a little bit more religious than I am, but I went with an open mind and was happy to see how much joy it brought to Harold,” Ewald said. “He mentioned in passing how the well on the property has had some moderately documented examples of miraculous healing. And he insisted on giving us (water), so he gave us a little plastic jug of water when we left.”
At some point on his drive to Lucas Oil Stadium from the farm, Ewald had an idea. “I said, ‘You know, I’ll bring some in and I’ll sprinkle it on the field.’” He dumped out an 8-ounce bottle of regular water, put the holy water in its place and made his move.
“I was trying to be a little bit surreptitious, so I walked holding the bottle in one hand, the lid just slightly open, and then my other hand had my cellphone,” he said. “I just kind of walked down behind the bench, dribbling water out as I went. And then I walked across the Indiana end zone as well, sprinkling the rest of the water as I went. And I let Harold know that I had done it, and he was like, ‘That’s great.’”
Mauro didn’t ask him to do it, but Ewald thought it would make him happy.
Then, Ohio State missed that 27-yard field goal wide left with less than 3 minutes to play, which could have tied the game 13-13. It was missed it in the end zone where Ewald had sprinkled the water.
IU walked away with its first outright Big Ten championship since 1945.
Of course, as faith usually goes, no one had any proof that water had done anything. Few even knew of Ewald’s sprinkling. But those who did, and those who believed, were all in on making sure that water followed IU as far as their magical football playoff run took them.
They made sure the holy water from the farm was in Pasadena for the Rose Bowl. And it will be there Friday for the Peach Bowl.
And should IU make it to the national championship, the holy water will flow there as well.
PERFECT! Buy this IU football championship book
‘Our Lady was like the 12th man on the field’
Fr. Terrance Chartier didn’t find out the water from his farm had blessed the IU portion of Lucas Oil’s field until after the game when Mauro’s wife sent him a video of Ewald pouring it out at the stadium.
“And I thought of Our Lady as like the 12th man on the field,” said Chartier, a priest with the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, who is stationed at the Mother of the Redeemer Retreat Center. “I thought she was there, especially with the field goal. Indoors, no wind, no rain, 27-yard field goal.
“I watched almost in disbelief as the kicker totally missed. I noted afterwards that the kicker was kicking into the same end zone with Indiana’s name on it, same end zone where Indiana had scored their touchdown in the third quarter and the same end zone that I saw Harold’s friend sprinkling the farm water in that video.”
Chartier scrapped the homily he had prepared on habits for the following Sunday morning and replaced it with an IU football-themed homily instead, which explained more about the water on his farm and what had happened in Indianapolis the weekend before.
“For those of you who don’t know, the water from the well here at the farm has reportedly been the cause of a number of miraculous cures,” Chartier said in his homily.
One of the biggest and most recent happened in January 2024 when Eric Johnson of New Albany, who had been suffering from a neuromuscular disease for nearly eight years and had a permanent disability, started drinking the water.
“He was actually cured of it after drinking water from the farm,” Chartier said. “His neurologist told him that there was no medical or scientific explanation for his cure.”
Chartier points to a number of similar stories regarding the farm water, including a spiritual directee of his in Norway who drank the water and believes she was cured of her lymphoma because of it. There are dozens of other, smaller, cures the water has brought to people, including cataracts, aches and pain and emotional distress.
“So, I knew the farm water and I knew it’s holy and I believe it was given by God to help heal people. But to help IU win the Big Ten championship? I hadn’t thought about that,” Chartier said.
But then he started thinking about Mauro, who has been so faithful to the farm, about his ties with IU and the fact that he is the one who gave Ewald the water, never expecting it would be used for IU football.
“I think she gave that victory last Saturday to Harold as an early Christmas gift, to thank him for his faithfulness and for all the good that he’s done for the farm,” Chartier said in his homily. “And I think she gave the victory also as a gift to her other son, the IU quarterback [Fernando Mendoza], who is a very faithful Catholic, too. And even as a gift to her other faithful children who were on the team.
“So may she, our lady of victories, continue to grant us all the spiritual victories that we need in this life, and even some of those other victories which are a sign and an encouragement to us, her children.”
Why is the water at Mother of the Redeemer considered holy?
Jim and Ruth Ann Wade, both longtime educators in Bloomington’s public schools, made way for the retreat center in 1993 when they gave up their home and farm, and dedicated it for Mother of the Redeemer.
Ruth Ann is a locutionist, Chartier said, someone who hears directly from the Lord and from Mary, the mother of Jesus.
“And that was one of the first things that they had asked for, that the farm would be turned into a retreat center,” he said. “And she was told, among other things, that the water on the property is holy and it could be used for blessing people and healings as well.”
But not all the water on the property is holy, only the water that flows from the green pump.
“The Lord Jesus told Ruth Ann that all the water under the original 40 acres, green pump only, is holy water and blessed by God and it has healing powers which God uses as an instrument of healing if he so chooses,” according to Mother of the Redeemer. “This pump is the only pump on the land that comes directly from the natural waters. Other water on the property is city water. Simply put, yes it is holy water blessed by God and by a priest.”
The water comes from a well located at the bottom of the hill on the property next to the Wades’ home. People travel from all over to get jugs of the water, which volunteers at the center pump. Visitors are also welcome to pump their own water and, after Chartier’s homily, there’s been quite an uptick in travelers to the well.
As for Ewald, he is making sure a bit of that water ends up on IU’s end zone for the rest of the season.
He made it happen at the Rose Bowl, albeit, he only had about two tablespoons to sprinkle. That water was brought from Mother of the Redeemer by a priest close with Mendoza and other players on the team.
Fr. Patrick Hyde, a Dominican priest and pastor of the St. Paul Catholic Center, held a private mass for players in Pasadena the night before the Rose Bowl. Mendoza, a devout Catholic, credited Hyde and the center for supporting his faith when he won the Heisman trophy.
Ewald met Hyde that night (the priest was wearing an IU sweatshirt and backpack) to secure the water.
“It was a little tiny bottle. They were nervous about how much they could bring, so it was like maybe a couple tablespoons of water,” Ewald said. “So I was a little bit more judicious in my sprinklings to make it last.” That meant no sprinkling on the sideline by the Indiana bench, just on its end zone.
“And we had so much rain,” Ewald said. “I was kind of like, you know, theoretically, it was getting diluted by all the rainwater.” But IU won, so it seemed to work.
Father Hyde will bring Ewald more water Friday night in Atlanta and the IU grad from the 1980s and one of the most veteran photographers of IU football will do his thing again.
Ewald’s just worried about one minor issue: This story will be published before the Peach Bowl.
“Well, hopefully they won’t detain me when I come in,” he said, “saying, ‘You’re the guy who’s been sprinkling water on our fields, damn it.’”
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.
Nick Saban had a chance to weigh in on the state of Alabama football after 2025 on Wednesday on the Pat McAfee Show.
McAfee questioned whether Alabama should have hired a Saban disciple to replace him considering all four coaches left in the playoff once worked for Saban at Alabama.
“I think if somebody was available, I’m not sure anybody was available that they could have maybe gotten to come here,” Saban said. “I do think that Kalen DeBoer is a really good coach and doing a good job here.”
Saban highlighted the “tough transition” DeBoer underwent with all of the players coming and going.
“So that’s a lot to overcome for anybody,” Saban said. “It would have been a lot to overcome for even for one of the guys that formerly coached for me.”
Saban then said he “fully supports” Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne, what he’s done and how the administrator has done it.
“I’m hoping they get the ship going in the right direction here,” Saban said. “It’s not bad to get in the playoffs and finish you know in the final eight, but not the expectation around here, which is tough to live up to sometimes.”
During his appearance on McAfee, Saban also talked some about Indiana and what the Hoosiers did to beat Alabama 38-3 in the Rose Bow.
“Indiana man, I mean they were impressive in the game,” Saban said. “Not that Alabama played great, and they made some mistakes early on that hurt them … These cats, man. Everybody talks about their offense. They’ve got some dawgs on defense now. These guys play hard, they play fast, they play together, they don’t make a lot of mental mistakes. They’re well coached. They fit the runs. This pop they put on Ty (Simpson) right here. …. Incredible the job they’ve done at Indiana. Curt Cig has done a fantastic job there.”
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