Northwestern entered the Big Ten Championships with several goals: break personal-best times, beat Michigan and have fun.
By Saturday night, the Wildcats had accomplished all three.
NU finished seventh in the 12-team field with 258 points. Minnesota took first with 680.5 points, followed by Indiana with 651. Ohio State, Wisconsin and Penn State rounded out the top five.
“It was a total team effort,” coach Jimmy Tierneysaid. “They (came) to not only compete and race well but support each other.”
The Cats set a goal at the beginning of the season to beat the Wolverines. They did not accomplish it during the regular season, falling to Michigan in a dual meet Jan. 14. At the Big Ten Championships, however, Michigan finished eighth, just behind NU, with 241 points.
“We’ve always had good meets against them,” Tierney said. “You always want to measure yourself against some of the best.”
The Cats started the tournament Wednesday night with a seventh-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay. The team of freshman Rachel Kim, junior Taylor Reynolds, and seniors Jenny Wilson and Meghan Cavanaugh posted a time of one minute and 40.08 seconds, the second-quickest time in NU history.
Thursday evening’s finals started with the 200-yard freestyle relay, in which the NU team of Reynolds, Powell, freshman Tori Larsen and junior Katie McCullough finished fifth and earned an NCAA ‘B’ cut time at one minute and 30.59 seconds.
In the final race Thursday night, the 50-yard freestyle, Reynolds swam a career-best 22.68 seconds, the fourth-quickest time in school history. The time held up as the fifth-fastest overall in the event.
Sosdian, Powell, sophomore Megan Goss and junior Lauren Clifford all swam career bests in the 500-yard freestyle.
The first individual event Friday evening, the 400-yard IM, featured five NU swimmers. Senior Hannah Points earned a bronze medal and broke her own school record with a time of four minutes and 12.30 seconds.
Cavanaugh swam in the consolation final of the 100-yard butterfly and posted a career-best time of 54.19 seconds, tied for second in NU history.
Other personal best times on Friday included sophomore Becca Soderholm in the 400-yard IM final, sophomore Fallon Fitzpatrick in the 100-yard butterfly preliminary and senior Jacquie Godbe in the 200-yard freestyle preliminary.
The final day of competition featured a broken record and several personal bests by the Cats.
In the morning preliminary, Wilson broke NU’s 200-yard breaststroke record with a time of two minutes and 11.84 seconds. That evening she broke the record again, clocking in nearly two seconds faster.
Junior diver Felicitas Lenz used a fourth-round dive to jump from eighth to fourth place in the 3-meter diving event. A solid final-round dive gave Lenz a second-place finish and All-Big Ten Second Team honors.
“I was just hoping to compete like I was practicing,” Lenz said. “I approached the meet not thinking it was a meet but just showing what I can do.”
Junior Meredith King captured an NCAA ‘B’ cut time and the sixth-best mark in NU history in the 200-yard butterfly finals. Soderholm also swam a career-best time in that event.
In the 100-yard freestyle preliminary, Reynolds’ time was a career-best, the third fastest in NU history and earned an NCAA ‘B’ cut time. She finished sixth in the finals with the fourth-best time in the school records.
The swimmers and divers must now wait to see if any scores qualify them for the NCAA Championships in March.
