Men's swimming and diving take on Northwestern

When the IU men’s swimming and diving team hosts Northwestern on Friday, IU coach Ray Looze said he hopes his team can duplicate its performance from last weekend, when the Hoosiers dominated Kentucky.

“We have such a young team that I didn’t really know what to expect (against Kentucky), and really I have to see that two or three times to believe it myself,” Looze said. “I know we have talent, but I’m interested to see if we can have some consistency.”

With a group of young swimmers, the win against Kentucky should provide some confidence as the team opens its Big Ten campaign.

“It helped us a lot, giving us a bigger goal to look at for this season,” said junior Chris Head. “We know we can go out and win, and we proved that last Saturday.”

Looze said he expects Northwestern to have a young but talented team, much like IU.

“They’ve been tough the past few years,” Looze said. “They’ve been in the top 10, and they were top 20 last year. They’ve been a big rival of ours, but they’re kind of in the same boat where they graduated some people and replaced them with freshmen.”

Sophomore diver Landon Marzullo earned Big Ten Diver of the Week honors last week for his performance against Kentucky. Marzullo set a pool record on the three-meter board with a total of 421.30 points. He said he hopes he can maintain his poise in the meet against Northwestern

“I just have to stay relaxed and keep doing what I did to get myself there,” he said. “I just have to stay focused.”

Despite his record-setting performance, Marzullo said he still believes he has room for improvement this week.

“There’s a lot of things on three-meter that I could have done better, even though I had a real good meet,” he said.