After a two-week break from competition, the Wildcats are back in action against No. 15 Michigan (2-3) on Saturday in Ann Arbor, Mich.
This meet, from a personnel standpoint, is a carbon copy of the Cats’ loss to Tennessee on Jan 7. Michigan has more swimmers, including quite a few who have given some Northwestern (4-4) swimmers an extra incentive to win.
One such swimmer is Wolverines’ freshman Payton Johnson, an Illinois native recruited by NU who ultimately chose Michigan instead.
“I want to swim well to prove to her that she chose the wrong school,” sophomore Katie Braun said, who will be competing against her in either the 200m or 100m fly.
Sophomore Andrea Hupman has a chance for redemption against Lindsay Smith, who out-touched her at last year’s Big Ten Championships to win the 100m freestyle.
This meet should help freshman Sara White-Delehoy get closer to top form after taking time off due to a side injury dating from the beginning of December.
“I’m expecting to do better than at the last meet,” White-Delehoy said. “I’m sure there will be close swims all over.”
Michigan provides a good test for the Cats as the penultimate meet before the Big Ten Championships on Feb 15-18 in Columbus.
“We want to be real competitive against one of the best teams in the Big Ten and work on some individual things to fine tune for Big Tens,” NU head coach Jimmy Tierney said. “Plus, there should be some pretty good match-ups.”
NU’s 200m freestyle relay will face the top-ranked relay team in the conference.
The Cats have not competed since losing to the Volunteers, but have been training hard despite not racing last weekend.
“Having the weekend off helped us a lot,” Braun said. “We’re definitely refreshed. We have had just the right amount of time off. At Tennessee we kinda forgot how to race.”
This race might prove to be the last real tune up of the year, and while Tierney and Braun don’t necessarily expect to win the meet, they at least want to put up a good fight.
“I’m not looking at the meet by how we are going to place,” Braun said. “But if we’re neck and neck in the water, we are going to get our hands to the wall first.”
Reach Brian Regan at [email protected].
