For the second week in a row, No. 14 Northwestern (4-4, 1-3 Big Ten) took on a top-10 team on the road. For the second week in a row, the Wildcats swam well, setting four lifetime bests.
For the second week in a row, the men’s swimming team came up just short, losing 135-106 to No. 8 Michigan (6-2, 4-0) on Friday in Ann Arbor, Mich.
“We had good races,” coach Bob Groseth said. “We had a chance to win the meet.”
Michigan’s depth proved to be too much for the Cats as the Wolverines’ swimmers took the top four spots in the 200-yard butterfly and three of the top four spots in four other events.
Michigan’s Peter Vanderkaay, part of the United States’ gold medal 200-meter freestyle relay team in Athens, beat NU freshman Kyle Bubolz by .02 seconds in the 100-yard freestyle.
Bubolz led Vanderkaay by about .2 of a second at the 50-yard mark, but Vanderkaay gradually closed on Bubolz and overtook him at the end.
“He’s a 200-meter swimmer and his endurance kicked in the last 15 meters,” Bubolz said. “I didn’t know who I was swimming against until I saw the times on the scoreboard after the race.”
Bubolz, along with sophomores Mike Alexandrov and Matt Grevers, swam NCAA “B” qualifying times. This means if they automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships in other events they will also be allowed to compete in the events in which they swam their “B” times.
The 400-yard medley relay, with Bubolz, Grevers, Alexandrov, and freshman David Kormushoff, also swam a “B” standard and won the race by seven seconds.
The Cats’ weekend was not finished, as they traveled to South Bend, Ind., on Saturday to face a confident Notre Dame (6-2), ranked No. 21 in the nation.
“Notre Dame came in saying they were going to beat us,” Grevers said. “We didn’t like that.”
Grevers showed his displeasure by breaking three pool records and earning an automatic NCAA bid with his 1:43.96 finish in the 200-yard backstroke in the Cats’ 163.5-134.5 victory over the Fighting Irish.
The 200-yard medley relay team of Bubolz, Grevers, and seniors Louis Torres and Matt Wever, started the meet with a win in a pool-record time of 1:30.05.
The Cats took the top two spots in six events, including a top-three sweep in the 100-yard freestyle by Bubolz, Kormushoff and junior Ben Dexter.
“One of our goals was to swim fast on both days and I think we did that,” Groseth said. “We traveled remarkably well, all things considered.”
With no meets this weekend, Groseth said he is going to stress consistency to help his swimmers prepare for their next competition, a two-day home meet against Iowa in two weeks.
NU’s recent performances against the elite squads have the team optimistic of its prospects for the Big Ten Championships, which take place February 24-26.
“We can do pretty well at those big meets,” Grevers said. “It’s the way that our guys show that we aren’t afraid.”
“It sets us up very well,” Groseth said. “We went against two highly-ranked opponents and went nose to nose with them.”
“We won’t be intimidated.”
Reach David Morrison at [email protected]
