After trailing by two points following the first day of competition against Iowa, the Northwestern men’s swimming team rallied on day two to beat the Hawkeyes, 186-157.
“I’m very pleased with how our guys swam this weekend,” coach Bob Groseth said. “It was good to see them compete at such a high level in our last meet before the Big Ten championships.”
The Wildcats dominated almost all 17 events in the meet, held Friday and Saturday. They garnered 13 first-place finishes.
“Even though we were winning events the first day, the second swimmers weren’t swimming that well,” Groseth said. “The second day, the second-line guys really stepped up and got us back into the meet.”
NU’s 400-yard medley relay team, which ranks No. 8 nationally, clocked 3:17.91 to break the Iowa pool record. It was NU’s 41st pool record of the season.
Senior Mark Hamming earned another pool record with his time of 1:46.22 in the 200 fly. Hamming also swam a personal-best in the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:01.61. He added a third-place finish in the 100 butterfly as well.
Senior Tony Swanson continued to have a standout year, breaking his personal record in the 200 individual medley with a time of 1:48.35. Swanson also won the 200 backstroke and finished second in the 100 fly.
“Tony’s 200 IM was impressive,” Groseth said. “He looked kind of ragged in practice during the week but put together an incredible performance.”
Sophomore Brian Davis posted three first-places, winning the 1,650 freestyle, the 400 individual medley and the 500 free.
Freshman Matt Grevers won the 100 free, and sophomore Ben Dexter and senior Shelby Clark were close behind, finishing third and fourth.
Sophomore diver Mike Oxman finished second in both the 1- and 3-meter diving events.
It was the final dual meet of the season for NU. The team has two weeks to rest before competing in the conference championships, Feb. 26-28 at Purdue.
“The main thing now is to keep your touch on the water,” Groseth said. “We’ll reduce the rigorous training a little bit and get rid of the fatigue, and these guys need to start to get mentally excited.
“We finished off the last part of the season very strong, and we’re going into Big Tens with a lot of momentum.”
