Swimming and Diving

Northwestern’s swimmers and divers suffered a double dose of defeat in their first meet of the winter, with Louisville’s women eking out a 151-149 win over the Wildcats while the Cardinal men beat NU 179.5-120.5.

The women’s meet came down to the wire, with Louisville swiping the victory on the last race of the night. In the 400-yard freestyle relay, the Cardinals’ foursome of Arina Openysheva, Lainey Visscher, Casey Fanz and Christiana Regenauer won out by 2.36 seconds over the Cats’ combination of Krystal Lara, Maddie Smith, Jasmine Hellmer, and Malorie Han .

This turned Louisville’s seven-point deficit into a two-point advantage , sinking NU’s shot at an eighth straight victory in dual meets .

Junior Calypso Sheridan was the most dominant individual Cat swimmer . The Australian opened the night with a 200-yard medley relay win; then led an NU podium sweep in the 100-yard backstroke; and added a runner-up finish in the 200-yard backstroke before closing as part of a triumph in the 400-yard medley relay .

The Cats also enjoyed a positive day in the backstroke on the men’s side, with sophomore Manuel Martos Bacarizo picking up a pair of second-place finishes .

Coach Jeremy Kipp effusively praised his backstroke team .

“They’ve done a good collective job in practice, (making) each other better,” he said. “ They compete really well.”

Other areas of success for the NU women included the 1000-yard freestyle, won by sophomore Ilektra Leb; the 100-yard breaststroke, won by freshman Hannah Brunzell ; the 200-yard butterfly, won by sophomore Miriam Guevara ; and the 200-yard breaststroke, won by Brunzell.

Overall, Kipp was pleased with the women’s performance against a quality opponent.

“It’s significant growth from where we were last year,” Kipp said, assessing his team’s body of work so far. “It’s a tough loss, and there’s no moral victories, but we certainly can take a lot of things away from this.

Wins were somewhat harder to come by for the men. Men who took individual victories included junior DJ Hwang in the 1000-yard freestyle; freshman Aleksa Bobar in the 200-yard freestyle; freshman Federico Burdisso in the 200-yard butterfly; freshman Marcus Mok in the 200-yard breaststroke; and Burdisso in the 100-yard butterfly .

Kipp found some positives in the men’s performance, praising their “competitive spirit.”

“You throw in the first week of classes, I know they’re a little bit out of sorts,” he said. “I think the score doesn’t really reflect how close it was. There were a few events where we got touched out for first place.”

The Cats will take Friday off before returning to the pool to compete in the NASA Invitational Saturday and Sunday. The tournament, held in Evanston and run by NASA Wildcat Aquatics, gets underway at 9:30 a.m. both days.

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