IU swim, dive sweep competition

The IU swimming and diving team swept Iowa, Illinois and Missouri in Iowa City, Iowa, on Saturday.

A total of 10 victories on the day helped the women’s team to 170-121, 170-126, and 193-103 victories over No. 21 Missouri, Iowa and Illinois, respectively. For IU Coach Ray Looze, the performance was an indication of how good his team can be.

“In the two meets beforehand we talked about how we really felt we could be one of the best teams in the country, and I think today was a true representation of that,” he said.

To open the meet, sophomore Brooklynn Snodgrass, senior Bronwyn Paslowski, freshman Gia Dalesandro and senior Kait Flederbach won the 200 medley relay.

Paslowski also won the 200-meter breaststroke and finished second in the 100-meter breaststroke. Juniors Justine Ress and Allie Day clocked in only 0.16 seconds apart to place second and third in the 100-yard backstroke.

Although the Hoosiers were able to show their depth, it was no question who had the best day in the pool. Senior Lindsay Vrooman swept the distance events and was a perfect three for three in her individual events. She took first place in the 1,000-yard freestyle, 500-yard freestyle and 200-yard freestyle.

“After watching the meet today it was easy to see how in shape we are,” Vrooman said. “Everyone was winning close races and catching others at the end of their race.”
Looze said he is confident in what his senior leader can accomplish at the end of the season.

“I think she’s going to be a real force at NCAAs,” he said. “She has a burning desire to put IU’s name out there, and I think she’s got a chance to win an NCAA title. I really do.”

Other wins for the women included freshman Olivia Barker in the 200-yard butterfly, Snodgrass in the 100-yard freestyle, junior Cynthia Pammett in the 200-yard backstroke and Flederbach in the 50-yard freestyle.

The men’s team defeated No. 21 Iowa 195-102 and No. 7 Missouri 174-123. After losing to their first four opponents of the season, the men have now equaled that number in wins.

Junior Steve Schmuhl and freshman Max Irwin went 1-2 in the 200-yard butterfly. Freshmen Jackson Miller and Anze Tavcar finished first in the 200-yard freestyle and 50-yard freestyle, respectively, with Tavcar earning an NCAA B-cut and personal best time of 20.81 seconds.

Miller also won the 500-yard freestyle, and sophomore Grayson Smith won the 1,000-yard freestyle.

Looze said he was especially happy with the way his underclassmen competed.

“On the men’s side I really loved the energy the team had right out of the gate,” he said. “One of the highlights was the freshmen stepping up, from Anze Tavcar to Jackson Miller. I was pretty excited about the positive energy.”

Senior Eric Ress had several top three finishes on the day. He said the team has made great strides in the month they had without competition.

“I feel our performance at U.S. Winter Nationals wasn’t the best representation of where we are as a team,” Ress said. “We really capitalized on our shortcomings at Nationals and made huge gains this past month. Today’s win showed how we’ve made progress as a team.”

Both the men and women took first in the 400-yard freestyle relay.

In the diving well, senior Darian Schmidt, who competed at the USA Diving National Championships last month, won the one-meter competition. His score of 455.75 was just five points off his own school record.

The men’s team went 2-3 in the one-meter competition with Emad Abdelatif finishing second and Schmidt third.

Kate Hillman was the lone Hoosier competing for the women’s team. She placed third on the one-meter and fourth on the one-meter.

After enjoying this win, the team will go back to work to prepare for back-to-back meets in the coming weeks.

“I think we’re set up for Big Tens perfectly,” Vrooman said. “We’re seeing constant improvement as meets go along. It was a little hard to get back into racing again today because it’s been awhile, but we’ll see even more improvement the next two meets coming up.”