Although the Northwestern men’s swimming team lost a home meet to Wisconsin Friday, team members said they were proud of their performance against a Big Ten opponent.
“We walked away with a lot more pride,” senior Kellan O’Connor said.
Despite losing the meet 159-128, NU swimmers won five events.
And their only diver, freshman Mike Oxman, won two diving competitions.
Oxman posted a score of 337.88 on the 1-meter dive and 346.95 on the 3-meter.
O’Connor led the Cats (2-4, 0-3 Big Ten) with a first-place finish in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 1:47.35.
The senior said he was disappointed with his time and hopes he can shave a couple of seconds off in time for next week’s NU Invitational.
“I was happy to get the win,” O’Connor said. “But I wasn’t happy with my performance and with my time. But a win’s a win.”
In the 1,000-yard freestyle, freshman Brian Davis finished in 9:28.86, narrowly winning the event over senior teammate Dave Hersh.
Davis also won the same event last week against Indiana, though his winning time Friday was more than a second slower.
Friday’s meet also brought first-place finishes from sophomore Louis Torres in the 100-yard breaststroke (57.26) and senior Mike Shue (4:32.39) in the 500-yard freestyle.
At last week’s meet against Indiana both swimmers recorded second-place finishes in the same events.
While NU lost this meet, O’Connor said the team will be able to beat Wisconsin when the teams face again — at the Big Ten championships.
“We’re more than confident that we can beat these guys when it really counts,” he said, looking ahead to February. “We pride ourselves on performing at Big Tens.”
And when the championships come, NU should be far more rested than it was on Friday.
While O’Connor said he thought Wisconsin had light practices before Friday’s meet, the Cats are currently in the midst of a tough practice schedule.
NU had less energy because of its strenuous training regimen. Each weekday, the team practices both early in the morning and in the afternoon, swimming for more than four hours daily.
While those practices bring fatigue, the swimmers believe they will be better prepared at the end of the season.
“Compared with Wisconsin, (we’re) at a different point in (our) season,” O’Connor said. “They’re more prepared and they had a little more energy than we had.”
