This past weekend, Northwestern hosted Wisconsin and Notre Dame in a double-dual meet, with the same order of events as that of the Big Ten Championships, spread out over a course of three sessions in two days. The Wildcats came out on top against the Fighting Irish, 208-162, but lost to No. 19 Wisconsin in a close meet, 196-173.
“I think overall the weekend was really good, but I think we just ran out of steam a little bit at the very end, and they couldn’t quite just hold the level of intensity that we had about 95 percent of the meet,” NU coach Jimmy Tierney said. “But there were some very, very impressive performances out of the girls, so overall we’re very pleased.”
The performances of senior Katie Braun, who won both the 200 individual medley and the 100 butterfly, and sophomore Kassia Shishkoff, who won the 400 IM and came in second in the 500 freestyle led the team. Senior diver Leanne Dumais was also victorious in both the 1-meter and 3-meter events.
The 800 freestyle relay, consisting of Shishkoff, senior Andrea Hupman, sophomore Emily Wong and freshman Ellen Grigg, not only won the event, but broke the pool record as well. Shishkoff, anchoring the relay, came from a body length behind to win. This victory tied the overall score between NU and Wisconsin at the end of the Saturday morning session.
“It was an exciting race,” Hupman said. “We were neck-and-neck with Wisconsin throughout the whole meet across every event on the points board, so we knew that we wanted to end off on a high note, so we could make sure that we kept our morale and our spirits as high as they could be coming into the last session. We didn’t even know what the record was going into the race – we weren’t aiming for that. We were just gunning to go as fast as we could and beat Wisconsin.”
Throughout the meet, the Cats kept the scoring tight against Wisconsin, but the Badgers pulled ahead with key victories in the 200 breastroke and 200 backstroke in the final session Saturday afternoon to clinch the win. Nonetheless, Tierney remained optimistic.
“(Wisconsin) is always tough, and they’re always a good team for us to race, but (the level of competition) is just about how we expected it,” he said. “Notre Dame has a great tradition as well – I was a little surprised and pleased that we did how we did, but I think a lot of it was just that our girls had a lot of energy and excitement to do well this weekend. They want to show the nation that we’re on our way back up, and I think they did a good job with that.”
Reach Bette Marston at [email protected].
