Despite their home pool advantage, the Northwestern men’s and women’s swimming teams were unable to pull ahead of Purdue in this weekend’s annual NU Invite. Both Wildcats teams finished second.
The Boilermakers’ men and women each took first place in the meet’s first event, pushing the Wildcats to second place. NU remained in that position throughout the meet.
The NU women’s team earned 1,078 points, leaving it 92 short of Purdue’s 1,170 points. The Cats’ men’s team scored only 800.5, while the Boilermakers tallied 1,123.5.
Other teams participating in the meet at Norris Aquatics Center were Southern Illinois, whose teams both finished in third, and Louisville, which took home two fourth-place finishes.
NU women’s head coach Jimmy Tierney said he realized coming into the meet that some schools were better prepared than were the Cats.
“Purdue, for example, came into the meet shaved and rested,” Tierney said of Purdue’s women’s squad. “They have also had about three or four more weeks of practice than we have.”
Tierney said that NU’s outstanding performers in the meet included Stephanie Cranston, Carmen Cosgrove, Katie Simmons, Susie Sample and Vicky West.
“I was really pleased with not just those girls but with a lot of the younger girls as well,” Tierney said.
The women’s team took the top three spots in the 1,650-yard freestyle, with West finishing first, followed by Erica Rose and Cranston. The Wildcats also took the top four spots in the 200 butterfly, with Cosgrove leading, followed by Rachel Johnson, Merritt Adams and Christy Olin.
“I thought all in all the girls did a really good job, especially the last night,” Tierney said.
He said the Cats had a very strong finish on Sunday night.
“That shows the conditioning was really good,” he added.
The women will be traveling south to Athens, Ga. for the Georgia Invite, which begins on Nov. 30.
“We’ll take a little more rest before Georgia,” Tierney said. “We are going down there to compete.”
Men’s head coach Bob Groseth said that his team produced no major surprises, and he was happy with most of the swimmers.
“The meet ran very well,” Groseth said. “The competition was good. Purdue swimmers swam very fast.”
Groseth said NU’s outstanding performances came from junior Mike Shue, junior Kellan O’Connor, sophomore Tony Swanson and the 400 free relay.
Swanson came away from the meet with victories in both the 200 individual medley and the 200 free, while Shue finished first in the 500 free. O’Connor dominated the butterfly competition, winning the 100 and 200 events in that stroke.
“With each meet we have, progressively more and more of the freshmen are stepping up,” Swanson said. “We’re starting to swim with more energy and more excitement. That is helping our performance and really helping us progress to being the team we need to be.”
With regards to his own performance, Swanson said he swam a couple of good races but is still looking for improvement.
“One of the things we are concerned with this year is that we don’t have a lot of hard meets,” Groseth said.
He said scheduling conflicts prohibited the team from competing in meets with some of the teams they usually compete against.
“Our hope is that we will use the meets that we have in January to prepare us for Big Tens,” Groseth said. “We will use Big Tens to prepare some of the good swimmers for the NCAA Championships.”
The Cats will travel to Honolulu on Dec. 15 for their holiday training camp. They will compete against Michigan State on Jan. 12 in their next home meet.
