Swimming and Diving

Despite strong performances from many of the team’s best swimmers, Northwestern fell to Notre Dame 166-132 on Saturday.

The Wildcats won their fair share of events, taking home seven of 16 first place finishes. However, injuries prevented NU from taking advantage of those wins.

“We swam really well on the top end, but just couldn’t capitalize on that because of a lack of depth,” said coach Jarod Schroeder.

In the losing effort, several younger swimmers had standout performances against Notre Dame.

Freshman Carter Page won both the 1,000 and 500 yard freestyles. Although he trailed Notre Dame’s second-place finisher in the 1,000 by nearly a full body length after only 200 yards, Page quickly turned the race around, ultimately winning by nine seconds after delivering a thunderous final lap in less than 28 seconds. In the 500, Page led the entire race and held off a challenge in the final laps to win by 0.19 seconds.

Schroeder singled out the performance of redshirt freshman Anthony Marcantonio, who won the 200 yard freestyle in a personal best 1:39.52. Marcantonio also set season-best times in his other two events, including an incredibly close win in the 200 Individual Medley.

“The whole team had a great meet,” Marcantonio said, “We all had high energy throughout.”

Freshman Thanas Kountroubis took home first place in the 100 yard breaststroke for NU while fellow freshman Will Hofstadter came in third, finishing 0.14 seconds behind Kountroubis and only 0.01 seconds behind second place finisher Andrew Jensen of Notre Dame.

Although the swimming events saw strong competition, the diving events were more lopsided in the Cats’ favor. Junior Andrew Cramer won both the one meter and three meter events, and his teammates captured third, fourth and fifth place in both events. Cramer won the one meter board by over 30 points, falling only 3.5 points short of earning the NCAA qualifying standard in the event.

The team lost the meet, but Schroeder expressed a general feeling of success about the competition. Many swimmers achieved faster times than they did in the fall, and the young team was still able to hang alongside Notre Dame despite lacking experience and depth.

“Even though we took a loss today, winning as many events as we did is good,” Schroeder said.

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