GENEVA, Ohio—Freshman Richard Nolan (Wilton, Conn.) won his third individual gold medal of the weekend with a BIG EAST title in the 200 yard breaststroke and Villanova added five medals to their count as the BIG EAST Championships concluded at the SPIRE Institute on Saturday night. The highlights of the evening included four individual top-three finishes and a bronze medal in the 400 yard freestyle relay to close out the competition. It all added up to a second place team finish for the Wildcats, who scored 685.5 points over four days at the conference meet.
 
Nolan was as big a hit out of the pool for his entertaining post-race interviews as he was in the pool as a first-year sensation who took the conference championships by storm. After he won gold in the 200 IM on Thursday night and the 400 IM on Friday, Nolan was back in the pool to add the third BIG EAST title of his young collegiate career on Saturday night.
 
He finished first in the championship final with a winning time of 2:00.26. The race had no shortage of intrigue, as senior Francis Prikasky (Pass Christian, Miss.) overtook three swimmers in the final 50 yards to capture the silver medal with a runner-up time of 2:01.36. He passed two swimmers from team champion Xavier and one from Seton Hall with a split of 31.20 over those last 50 yards. That split was more than six-tenths of a second faster than any of the other eight swimmers in the race. Senior JJ Strain (Greenwood Village, Colo.) was a qualifier for the consolation final and finished 11^th overall in 2:06.23.
 
"It's a dream come true," Nolan said in his live interview after medals were handed out to the top finishers in the 200 breast. "It's awesome. Every teammate here is swimming so good. Coach Simpson told us last night this is our night, let's go get it. It's been an amazing night for us at Villanova. We're coming in here and showing what we're all about and we never give up."
 
Saturday night's event schedule began with the 1650 yard freestyle and sophomore Jake McIntyre (Essex, Vt.) won the silver medal with a second place finish and a time of 15:31.58. Also medaling later in the evening was freshman Nolan Danus (Morris Plains, N.J.) who won bronze in the 200 yard butterfly with a time of 1:49.00.
 
Villanova qualified two swimmers for the championship final of the 200 fly and had five scorers in the event overall. Sophomore Kevin Geist (Hilton Head Island, S.C.) finished fifth in the championship race with a time of 1:50.99 while the trio of sophomore Stephen Griner (Greenville, S.C.), senior Jordan Fetterman (Berkeley, Calif.) and junior Jesse Marsh (Kingston, Jamaica) all swam in the consolation final. Griner came in 10^th (1:51.30), Fetterman was 12^th (1:53.17) and Marsh finished 14^th (1:54.49).
 
Freshmen Ethan Brown (West Hartford, Conn.) and Charlie Hinckley (New York, N.Y.) each qualified for the championship final in the 200 yard backstroke. Brown tied for a fourth place finish with a time of 1:49.08 and Hinckley came in sixth in 1:50.88. Graduate student Christopher Paynter (Hershey, Pa.) placed sixth in the championship final of the 100 yard freestyle in 46.05 while sophomore Reid Hutcherson (Richmond, Va.) was ninth (45.97) and sophomore Ryan Maher (Phoenixville, Pa.) came in 13^th (46.56).
 
The last event of the meet was the men's 400 free relay in which a lineup of Hutcherson, Maher, Fetterman and Paynter came in third with a time of 3:04.65. Paynter swam the anchor leg of the race with a split of 45.98 to put a cap on the big weekend for the Wildcats.