Outnumbered and facing tough competition, the Northwestern women’s swimming team needed everything in its arsenal for a victory. But it was not enough as the Wildcats lost to No. 16 Tennessee 194-158.

“Going into the meet we were not sure we had enough depth to win,” NU coach Jimmy Tierney said.

The team had only 16 swimmers and divers compared to a much larger Tennessee team (5-0). Because of this personnel advantage, the Cats (4-4) had some swimmers participating in many more events than the Volunteers.

“Tennessee was able to space their events for their swimmers, but our team is pretty good at handling fatigue and actually had some of its best swims later in the meet,” Tierney said. “Overall, we were pretty pleased and had set a secondary goal to win a majority of events, which we accomplished. I don’t know if we could have done a whole lot more.”

With solid performances by sophomores Andrea Hupman and Katie Braun, the Cats won 11 of the 19 events with Braun and Hupman each winning three events and freshman diver Chelsea Davis winning two.

“Although she was not the only star, Katie (Braun) really stepped it up,” Tierney said.

Braun had a personal best time in the 200 fly as well as her best-ever relay split.

Senior Amy Mueller had her best time of the year in the 1650 free, her last race of the day.

The Cats’ duo of Braun and Hupman both recorded NCAA national qualifying “B” standard times, Braun in the 200 fly and Hupman in the 100 free. Braun swam 2:01.34 and won her race by nine seconds, while Hupman won with a time of 50:76 and by a margin of .76 seconds.

In addition to the two dominating sophomores, the Cats had help from freshman Hayley Fry with a 1:04.93 split, and senior Katie Paglini, with a 58.75 split,who helped win the 400 IM relay.

The team is stepping up the intensity of its practices in order to help prepare for the Big Ten Championships Feb. 15-18.

“We will be by far the smallest team there, with at most 16 girls, but depth won’t be as much of a factor there,” Tierney said.

Purdue, which has almost three times NU’s numbers on its swim team, and other schools can bring a maximum of 28 swimmers and divers to Columbus, Ohio. Many of these schools will have superior depth to the Cats.

The Cats face Michigan on Jan. 21, and Tierney hopes to work hard enough to improve upon the results of the Tennessee meet.

“I think Michigan will get a run for their money,” Braun said. “We have more fight than I ever thought we would, and a ton of talent.”

Reach Brian Regan at [email protected].