Revenge is a dish best served wet.
That’s what Eastern Michigan found out Friday, when Northwestern avenged last year’s shocking loss and dismantled the Eagles 160.5 to 128.5 at the Norris Aquatics Center.
“It was real good,” senior captain Tim Smith said of the win. “Especially the way we did it. It felt good to blow them out of the water. It was a good way to start the season.”
The Wildcats set the tone immediately with its 200-yard medley relay teams. The “A” squad breezed to a three-second win, and the “B” group was able to out-touch EMU’s “A” group, giving the Cats a major points advantage one event into the meet. Coach Jarod Schroeder said this is a unit he will rely on to get his team energized at the beginning of every meet.
“That’s probably our best relay,” Schroeder said. “Hopefully we can continue that trend throughout the season where we set a good tone.”
NU continued its dominance in the next race, as sophomore Jordan Wilimovsky picked up right where he left off last year, posting a career time of 9:12.51 in the 1,000-yard freestyle, and won the event handily.
Senior Chase Stephens ended last season on a high note when he qualified for the NCAA Championships for the first time in his career. He came firing off the blocks Friday, winning the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events and tying for first place in the 200-meter race. Stephens admitted tying with EMU’s Brian Moore was weird, but said he wanted to come out on top in this particular race because Moore beat him by a narrow margin last year.
“I was really bitter about that,” Stephens said. “I was really happy that I went under one minute 40 seconds. That was one of my goals coming into the first meet. Hopefully I can continue that throughout the rest of the season.”
The Cats went on to win the rest of the events, except for the 200-yard butterfly.
The most notable difference this year against the Eagles was the impact the diving team made on the final score. In previous years, NU held its breath during the diving events, hoping to get a few, if any, points to take pressure off the swimmers. Smith said having strong diving scores really boosted the team morale.
“The guys have been more aware of what’s going on with the diving,” he said. “It’s kind of bringing the whole team together because when the divers perform well, we are happy to see them do that and cheer them on.”
Although there were many positives to take away from the Cats’ convincing win, the team knows there’s still a lot of room for growth heading into this weekend’s meet with Western Kentucky. Schroeder said he will have the team focus a lot on its sprints and that there needs to be more improvement outside of the pool in terms of the unit’s attitude every week.
“We’ve been very confident against teams we know we can beat,” he said. “The issue is going to be when we go against teams that pose more of a challenge, we tend to have a lower energy and confidence level, and that affects our swimming. We have to keep that same energy and confidence level last week coming up this week.”
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