Before the Iowa meet on Friday at the Sports and Aquatics Center, the women’s swim team honored its seniors in front of the largest home crowd of the season.
Northwestern’s four seniors were introduced by the coaches, then given flowers by their teammates and seniors on the men’s swim team. With their parents at their sides, each senior also received a scrapbook and a pearl necklace courtesy of the underclassmen.
Then they took care of business in the pool.
The Wildcats (5-5) ended their two-meet losing streak and crushed the Hawkeyes (5-6) 186-108 by winning 14 of 16 events. All four of the seniors swam very well, said senior captain Sara Petric.
The team was led by senior Amy Mueller’s season-best performance in the first individual event of the meet, the 1000-yard freestyle.
“Amy was phenomenal,” Petric said. “She really set the tone for the meet and got the rest of us fired up.”
Senior Katie Paglini also won the 200 individual medley and the 200 backstroke. Petric recorded three second place finishes, and senior Michelle Oeser swam a 23.27-second 50 freestyle split in the first event of the meet, the fastest split she has swum all year.
The rest of the team did their best to add to the Cats’ point total.
Sophomore Andrea Hupman won three individual freestyle events, including one she doesn’t normally swim, the 500 freestyle. In the 50 freestyle she out-touched Petric by a quarter of a second and won the 200 freestyle by almost six seconds over the field.
The butterfly events all went sophomore Katie Braun’s way as she dominated the competition, winning the 100 and 200 butterfly. Again she managed to beat the field by a sizeable margin.
“I was so excited to get under 2:02 again for the first time since Tennessee,” said Braun, even though her time was six-tenths of a second off her season best of 2:01.34 in the 200 butterfly.
Freshman Hayley Fry took both breaststroke events and Paglini split the backstroke events, winning the 200 but losing to Hawkeyes senior Kelly Werner by .47 seconds in the 100-yard event.
The team won all three of the relays, which are some of the squad’s strongest events going into the NCAA championships, said NU coach Jimmy Tierney.
Several swimmers are beginning to jockey for the last positions on the relays. Braun said she hoped her performance in the 400 freestyle relay, which was her best relay split to date, will get her the nod to participate in it at the Big Ten championships.
Returning to Big Ten competition after missing the Michigan meet because of training for USA Diving, freshman Chelsea Davis won both diving events, followed by teammate Leann Dumais.
The Cats now have a two-week break before the Big Ten championships. It may be the biggest meet of the year, but last weekend the team was more concerned about honoring their seniors.
“All of us stepped up and swam hard,” Braun said. “We wanted to help the seniors go out with a bang after all they’ve done for us.”
Reach Brian Regan at [email protected].
