Despite recording many season bests and breaking two school records, the No. 22 Wildcats finished seventh at the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Mich., falling short of their pre-meet ranking.
The Cats (10-2) entered Big Tens, which took place Feb. 18-21, ranked fifth in the Big Ten in the latest swimming rankings, but found themselves buried in seventh place by the end of the first full day of competition after a slow start.
“There were certainly some spots I think we could have been better,” coach Jimmy Tierney said. “We had to be really at a high, high level to move into that top echelon… I think although we are a deeper team, we still have to develop some of these kids to a higher level to make a big difference at Big Tens.”
After struggling in both relays on the opening night, Northwestern rebounded with strong individual performances during the rest of the meet. But the Cats still were unable to make up enough ground.
Sophomore Ellen Grigg was NU’s top scorer for the meet.
“It was definitely exciting,” Grigg said. “But there are so many great swimmers on our team and so many people swimming personal bests, it was definitely unexpected.”
Grigg rebounded from an average performance in the 800-yard freestyle relay to account for 31 of NU’s 253 points. After winning the consolation final of the 500-yard freestyle Thursday night, Grigg took third in 200-yard freestyle.
“She swam just OK the first night,” Tierney said. “I give her a lot of credit because a lot of the time, your first event can set the tone, but she just did a terrific job of hanging in there. She’s a great competitor, and she was certainly one of our leaders this week.”
Junior Emily Wong also swam well for the Cats, grabbing two top-five finishes and recording the fastest split on the 200-yard freestyle relay that broke the school record in Friday’s preliminary time trials.
Junior Genny Szymanski also broke her own school record in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:56.13, cutting nearly a second off of her previous best but likely falling short of qualifying time for March’s NCAA championships.
“She did a terrific job,” Tierney said. “We gave her a target to shoot for, she dropped a pretty significant amount of time, hit the target we gave her, and now it looks like that’s not going to be quite fast enough.”
NU appears to be in jeopardy of being shut out of NCAAs, despite netting many season-best times at Big Tens. The Cats will be sending about 10 swimmers to a last-chance meet at Purdue this weekend, which will give them another chance to notch qualifying times.
“I think another week might let some of these girls get rested a little more, sharpen them up a bit” Tierney said. “Just having another opportunity, I think we’ll see some time drops next week for sure.”
williamcarey2012
@u.northwestern.edu
