Northwestern women’s swimming and diving will close out its season this week, sending six athletes to the NCAA Division I championships from Wednesday to Sunday.
Sophomore swimmer Zoe Nordmann and sophomore diver Isabella Chen punched their tickets in individual events, while senior Lindsay Ervin, graduate student Ekaterina Nikonova, senior Audrey Yu and junior Amy Pan qualified in the 200-yard freestyle relay.
NU’s competition begins Wednesday, with Nordmann representing the ’Cats in the 1,650-yard freestyle while Ervin, Nikonova, Yu and Pan swim the 200-yard freestyle relay Thursday.
The team placed ninth at the Big Ten championship meet Feb. 18-21 for the second straight year despite increasing its scoring from a 409-point finish in 2025 to 446 points in 2026. Nordmann and Ervin each delivered top-eight individual finishes for the ’Cats at the championships.
“We were all really excited,” Nordmann said about NU’s Big Ten championship performance. “I think we’re even more excited for what we can do next year, because we have a lot of strong girls coming in. But we were really proud of ourselves, and we know we can do better and we know we have things to work on.”
Nordmann placed sixth in the Big Ten, racing a 16:06.23. Her personal best, a 16:04.59 at the Texas Hall of Fame Invitational in November, is the 15th-fastest time in the country this season.
Ervin swam a personal best 48.28 to place eighth in the conference in the 100-yard freestyle. Racing on the last day of competition, Nordmann said the ’Cats rallied around Ervin, one of NU’s eight seniors and graduate students.
“She was in lane eight, and our team was right on the edge by her, so we were screaming so loud,” Nordmann said. “It was so emotional watching one of her last individual races just because she works so hard.”
The 200 free relay finished sixth at the Big Ten Championships, with a time of 1:28.38. The ’Cats enter the NCAA championships with the 16th-fastest 200 free relay time in the nation, after qualifying for the national meet with a pool-record 1:28.06 during a dual meet against Wisconsin on Jan. 17.
Chen will compete Saturday in the platform dive after qualifying in the NCAA Diving national qualifier meets from March 9-11.
Nordmann also races Friday in the 500-yard freestyle. She finished 11th at the Big Ten Championships in the event, along with winning the 200-yard freestyle C-final for a personal best 1:46.31 and 17th place finish in the conference.
She has three older sisters who have all swam at the collegiate level and grew up watching them compete at the national championships. After racing at the NCAA championship for the first time last year in NU’s 800-yard freestyle relay, which placed 21st in Division I, Nordmann will swim individually at the national meet for the first time Wednesday.
“I’ve gone to NCAAs so many times watching them being in the stands, so it’s really exciting to be one of the athletes on deck,” Nordmann said.
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