With two and a half days, three pool records, three victories and two miles of competitive swimming behind him, senior Eric Nilsson only had 25 yards of water in front of him, and essentially nothing was at stake.
The men’s and women’s team were both winning comfortably with only two races remaining, and Nilsson had a few strokes on his closest competitor, teammate Sean Mathews. He was slightly off-pace to break the pool record in the 200 butterfly he had set about six hours earlier in preliminaries.
But about 10 seconds later, it became clear he was not content. For the fourth time this weekend, he had set a pool record.
“I went after it in the prelims,” Nilsson said. “But then I came out in the finals and just went after it again.”
Nilsson’s performance was indicative of the success both Northwestern teams enjoyed this past weekend at the three-day, championship-style TYR Invitational at the Norris Aquatics Center. The Wildcats defeated conference rival Michigan State and Division III swimming powerhouse Kenyon College – winners of 29 straight men’s swimming championships and 22 out of the last 25 women’s championships.
On the men’s side, the swimmer of the meet was Nilsson, who led all swimmers with 113 points, won four races and set pool records in the 200-yard butterfly, 200-yard free and 500-yard free.
“He just had some great swims,” men’s coach Bob Groseth said. “It’s great to see him after living in the shadows of guys like Mike Grevers and Mike Alexandrov to be able to shine.”
The women’s swimmer of the meet was junior Kassia Shishkoff, who finished with 111 points – 33 more than the closest competitor – but head coach Jimmy Tierney was more impressed with the smaller achievements of his team.
“I’ve been really impressed with our depth,” Tierney said, choosing to highlight less obvious standout performances than Shishkoff’s four race victories, Emily Wong’s pool record in the 100-yard free and multiple NCAA qualifying times. “I look at something like a Meghan Cavanaugh, who led off our D relay team with a swim that would be on the A relay at most teams around the country.”
Wong’s 100-yard free race was the only individual pool record not set by Nilsson, and she also came within .01 seconds of breaking the pool record in the 50-yard free. NU also set a pool record in the women’s 800-yard free relay.
Although both teams ended up winning, the women’s victory was more decisive. Although the men’s team only led by four after the first day, the women’s team had opened up an 87-point margin, which ballooned to a 165-point lead Saturday, and finished with a winning margin of 1630-1259.5.
The men’s team’s margin of victory was 1260-1211. Michigan State was second for the entire tournament and Kenyon was third.
The nature of the TYR Invitational makes the victories even more impressive. Unlike most dual meets, which last just one day, the tournament lasted three days.
It was even more strenuous for many of the swimmers than the season-ending Big Ten tournament or NCAA tournament because of the more selective nature of those events, which involve more schools. A swimmer who swims four events at the Big Tens might have swum 15 at the TYR.
“It was a challenge,” Tierney said. “But it was meant to be a challenge. And when we get to those tournaments with fewer swims, hopefully they’ll know that they can handle that.”
