Hoosier swimming and diving sweeps Louisville

A crucial relay win and an unstoppable Eric Ress helped the IU swimming and diving team to a sweep of Louisville in a dual meet Friday at Cousilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center.

Swimming a total of 2,100 yards, senior Eric Ress won three of his four events as the No. 8 IU men’s team came away with a 162-138 win over the No. 7 Cardinals.

Seniors James Wells and Cody Miller, along with freshmen Max Irwin and Anze Tavcar took the 200-yard medley relay to open the meet. Ress then touched first in the 1,000-yard freestyle race to give the men’s team the first two events of the meet.

IU Coach Ray Looze said the team’s strong start was a shock to their opponent and allowed them to have success throughout the night.

“We didn’t expect to win any relays, so to win that first relay was sort of a punch in the face to our opponent and it dazed them for awhile,” he said.

Freshman Jackson Miller was second in both the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle. In the 100-yard breaststroke, Miller was second and he then took third in the 100-yard butterfly. Wells posted a decisive win in the 100-yard backstroke, finishing in 47.76 seconds.

It was Ress, though, who kept his team in front. In addition to his 1,000 freestyle win, he then took the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard backstroke, and was a member of the second-place 400-yard freestyle relay team.

“I’m super proud of Eric Ress,” Looze said. “I don’t think anyone swam any further by any margin than him. Sweeping the 200 back and sweeping the 500 free right there — that was where the meet swayed in our favor.”

In the diving well, the men’s team went 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 in the one-meter event, led by senior Emad Abdelatif, who scored 364.28 points. Seniors Joshua Arndt and Darian Schmidt were second and third, respectively.

They also took the top six spots in the 3-meter competition, Schmidt finishing first with 425.18 points.

IU Diving Coach Drew Johansen said he was looking for flaws in the Hoosiers’ dives going into the meet, but he said he didn’t see many in their dominant performance.

“We had a few misses there just dealing with the pressures of competition and the anticipation of doing a good dive, but I thought technically they were all in good form today,” he said.

On the women’s side, senior diver Kate Hillman was the lone Hoosier competitor, diving for the last time at home. She outscored all four Louisville divers to take both the one-meter and 3-meter crown.

For the swimmers, the meet got off to an unusual start. The A relay team was disqualified in the opening 200-yard medley because of an early exchange, something that hasn’t occurred once this year for the women.

From that point on, though, it was a story of 1-2-3 finishes, as the No. 11 women cruised to a 175-123 win.

Senior Lindsay Vrooman placed first in the 1,000-yard freestyle, followed by freshman Stephanie Marchuk in second and sophomore Haley Lips in third. In the next event, Vrooman and Lips finished 1-2 and junior Cynthia Pammett took third for a sweep of the 200-yard freestyle.

Finally, in a third consecutive event, sophomore Brooklynn Snodgrass was the first of three Hoosiers in the 100-yard backstroke. Juniors Allie Day and Justine Ress went 2-3, respectively.

Looze said he was proud of the way his team protected its home pool.

“We talked about putting any limits on ourselves,” he said. “We’re going to try to max out to the very highest degree possible.”

Other first place finishes included freshman Gia Dalesandro in the 100-yard butterfly, junior Dorina Szekeres in the 400-yard individual medley. and seniors Bronwyn Paslowski in the 100-yard breaststroke and Kait Flederbach in the 50-yard freestyle.

Senior Brenna MacLean said the competitive meet atmosphere foreshadowed championship season.

“At the beginning we had a little bit of adversity and I think that we quickly came together and really put the pressure on,” she said. “We wanted to really mimic what a big meet would look like.  At the end of the day, I know the seniors wanted to finish it up tough and have an amazing meet, and the team was behind us the entire way.”

Follow reporter Grace Palmieri on Twitter @gpalmieri7.