Even though junior Sean Mathews topped the individual rankings at the TYR Invitational, it was not the first-place finish he had hoped for.
Despite Mathews’ strong performance, the Wildcats closed out their three-day meet Sunday, finishing second in a six-team field. Northwestern fell short by more than 100 points, losing 970.5-806.5 to No. 7 Michigan State, the tournament’s champion.
“I’d much rather have won the team competition than the individual competition,” Mathews said. “But the way I’ve got to think about is that finishing first in the individual competition means that I’m giving my team as many points as I can.”
Mathews raked in points all weekend, adding 95 to the team total. Freshman Charlie Rimkus finished second in the individual rankings, five points behind Mathews. Junior Alex Tyler, along with Mathews and Rimkus, notched ‘B’ cuts – qualifying them for the NCAA finals.
“Obviously we would have liked to win the whole meet,” coach Jarod Schroeder said. “But a lot of our younger guys made great steps and the older guys that we really rely on came up big.”
Junior Peter Park turned in a career-best time as he won the 500-yard freestyle, and sophomore Brian Kerr beat out Mathews for a 1-2 finish in the 50-yard butterfly. The freshmen got in on the action with strong performances from Varun Shivakumar and Jan Hanulik. The duo took third and fourth in the 200-yard backstroke, respectively.
“The meet got off to a slightly rocky start,” Rimkus said. “But we really rallied in the end at a point in the season when it’s really tough to swim fast.”
The Cats went into the weekend with minimal rest, coming off a four-week period that featured three Big Ten matchups. Michigan State’s only conference meet this season came in October. NU’s fatigue was compounded by its small and inexperienced roster – with eight freshmen on the 20-man roster compared to five freshmen on Michigan State’s 25-man roster.
“We are all pretty tired at this point in the season,” Mathews said. “We struggled with swimming well in the morning, which is obviously important because that is when you qualify for the finals.”
The TYR Invitational marked the first time the Cats competed before noon. Because of the six-team field, qualifying was held in the morning and championships in the afternoon.Two of NU’s remaining three Big Ten meets will start in the morning, as will the conference championship.
The Cats head into a six-week break from competition, though they will travel to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., for high-elevation training. Schroeder said the team will use this weekend’s results to refine its training, in particular its backstroke and sprint freestyle events.
“This meet was helpful, and we can take a lot of that into training,” Schroeder said. “We’re going to really kick their butts in Colorado to get ready for the rest of the season.”[email protected]
