Northwestern women’s swim and dive team competed in the Women’s Big Ten Swimming and Diving Championships at Canham Natatorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The meet lasted from Wednesday, Feb. 15 to Saturday, Feb. 18.

On day one, the Wildcats’ team of freshman Audrey Yu, sophomore Justine Murdock, senior Hannah Brunzell and graduate student Miriam Guevara took fourth place in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:36.96. NU continued its strong showing with a fifth place in the 800 freestyle relay, swam by freshmen Jamie Brennan and Hana Shimizu-Bowers, sophomore Ashley Strouse and senior Ally Larson.  

The action continued on day two, with preliminaries and finals for the 500 freestyle, 200 individual medley and 50 freestyle, with just a final at night for the 400 medley relay. Strouse qualified in ninth place in the 500 freestyle preliminaries with a time of 4:43.16 to lead the B final and went on to win it at night, dropping almost a full second off her prelims time going 4:42.23.

In the 200 IM prelims, Brennan clocked in at 1:58.32 to score a spot in the B final. During finals, she finished in 16th with a time of 1:59.86, a little off her morning swim.

Yu and freshman Lindsay Ervin qualified for the 50 freestyle C final, Ervin going 22.69 and Yu going 22.82 in prelims. At night, Yu shaved off .12 seconds to finish second in the C final and 18th overall, Ervin finishing third in the C final and 19th overall. Thursday’s finals also saw the Cats’ 400 medley relay team of Murdock, Yu, Guevara and Brunzell finish in fifth place with a time of 3:32.38.

Day three saw NU’s first top-three finish, with Guevara absolutely flying to take home a third-place medal in the 100 butterfly, with a time of 51.59. Later that night, she went 52.34 in the 100 backstroke to take fifth place. In the 400 IM, Shimizu-Bowers earned points for the team with her fourth-place finish in the C final, improving her prelims time by two seconds and going 4:18.80. Strouse added onto the Cats’ points with a fifth-place finish in the 200 freestyle, clocking in at 1:45.72. The 100 breaststroke saw Brunzell finish sub-1:00, earning fifth place with a 59.76 time.

Day four featured the mile, or 1650 freestyle, where junior Lola Mull came home in seventh place, finishing with a time of 16:14.35. Other notable finishes from the last day of competition were Guevara’s fourth place in the 200 butterfly with a time of 1:55.82, Murdock’s sixth place finish in the 200 backstroke with a time of 1:54.99, Brunzell’s seventh place finish in the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:10.11 and Strouse’s eighth place finish in the 100 freestyle with a time of 48.81. 

On the diving side, seniors Markie Hopkins and Jaye Patrick finished in 12th and 13th place, respectively, in the 1 meter diving event. Hopkins earned a score of 289.10, improving from her prelims score of 278.35. Patrick also saw improvement from prelims, where she earned a 277.30 and raised it to a 288.20 during finals. Hopkins went on to capture sixth place in the platform diving finals on the last day of the meet. Senior Carolyn Hagler finished in 15th in the 3 meter diving event, earning a score of 248.35.

NU ended the meet with a fifth-place finish in the 400 freestyle relay, with the team of Ervin, Strouse, Yu and Larson coming home in 3:15.57. The Cats finished in sixth place overall, with a score of 710 points, fueled by their 363 individual swimming points, along with their 250 relay points and 97 diving points.

NU hopes to continue its momentum at the NCAA Championships next month.

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Twitter: @kunjal_bastola

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