Iowa City, Iowa - The Nebraska swimming
and diving team finished in second place with an overall score of 670 points in
the Hawkeye Invitational at the University of Iowa's Campus Recreation and
Wellness Center on Sunday.
The
squad finished behind Michigan (876.5), but defeated Iowa (559.5) and
Northwestern (472.5), both of which finished above the Huskers at last season's
Big Ten Championships.
The
Huskers had a wide variety of standout performances during Sunday afternoon's
finals. Bailey Pons got things started with a fourth place finish in the
1,650-yard freestyle (16:38.50).
The
trio of Ariel Weech (49.75), Hayley Martin (49.90), and Taryn Collura (49.98)
finished second, third, and fourth, respectively, in the 100-yard freestyle. Weech's
time was the third best in school history and was less than a second off the
current school record of 48.76.
Kristin
Strecker and Ashley Reiter tied for fifth in the 200-yard breaststroke with a
time of 2:17.10. Natalie Morris added a seventh-place finish in the 200-yard
butterfly (2:02.26).
In
the diving well, Amy Herman (266.55), Kailey Harmon (237.90), and Nicole
Schwery (233.60) placed second, fourth, and fifth in the platform dive,
respectively.
Other
top-16 finishers on the day were Ellan Dufour (200 Back), Morgan Flannigan (1,650
Free), Katt Sickle (1,650 Free), Shannon Guy (200 Fly), Melisa Mexia (200 Fly),
Kelsey Larson (200 Breast), and Nikolina Sabo (200 Breast).
Nebraska
finished the day with a second place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay. The
Huskers lost a tight race to Michigan, losing by 28 hundredths of a second. The
team of Weech, Martin, Dunn, and Collura had the fourth fastest time in school
history, finishing in a time of 3:21.27.
Overall,
Nebraska accumulated 47 top-16 finishes on the weekend. However, the only win
came in the first event of the meet, when the Huskers' 200-yard freestyle relay
team finished in a time of 1:31.07, just one hundredth of a second slower than
the school record.
Notably,
Hayley Martin did set a school record with her time of 54.25 in the 100-yard
backstroke preliminaries on Saturday. Therese Alshammar, who posted a time of
54.77 in 1998, held the previous record.
The
squad will return to action in January with holiday training. Their next official
meet isn't until January 19, when the Huskers host San Diego State at the
Devaney Natatorium in a dual starting at 1 p.m.
