The No. 10 Indiana women’s swim and dive team competes in the 2023 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships Wednesday through Saturday at the Allan Jones Aquatic Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. Prelims begin at 10 a.m. on Thursday and finals start at 6 p.m. each night.
Indiana has 12 women who qualified for this year’s national meet, and all five relay teams will be represented. Among the athletes are sophomore swimmers Anna Peplowski, Mariah Denigan and Ching Gan as well as freshman swimmer Kristina Paegle. The quartet of swimmers, along with divers sophomore Skyler Liu and junior Anne Fowler, qualified for three events at this week’s season-ending meet.
The women are on a hot streak that stretches back over a decade. They have finished in the top 15 in each of the last 14 seasons thanks in big part to at least one individual title in eight consecutive seasons. Both are streaks that they will look to extend this week.
There will be just two events up for grabs Wednesday, with the 200-yard medley relay and 800-yard freestyle relay kicking things off in Knoxville. The Hoosiers have been strong in both events all season, particularly in the 800 freestyle. Peplowski, Gan, senior Mackenzie Looze and Paegle set the program record to win the Big Ten title in the event back in February - their time of 6:58.44 was the quickest of all.
There are finals in five events on Thursday, followed by seven finals on Friday and Saturday. Indiana is poised to make waves on Saturday with five top-15 seeded events. Gan and Denigan are both seeded in the top ten in the 1650-yard freestyle, Peplowski will look to follow up her Big Ten title in the 200-yard backstroke as the 13 seed and Paegle and senior Ashley Turak will swim the 100-yard freestyle with a chance to crack the program record of 47.84 seconds.
Anna’s sister, graduate student Noelle Peplowski, won the conference title in the 200-yard breaststroke and is one of a trio of Hoosiers swimming the event Saturday night, joined by graduate student Mackenzie Looze and sophomore Brearna Crawford.
The record-breaking 400-yard freestyle relay team of Anna Peplowski, Turak, sophomore Ella Ristic and Paegle will be last in the lanes for Indiana. Their program-record time of 3:13.45 was one of three Hoosier records set this season.
The diving duo of Liu and Fowler will plunge off the platform on the final night in Knoxville. Liu was the top qualifier in the platform diving event at the NCAA Zone C Diving Championships in Bloomington last weekend, taking first place by over 40 points.
The action jumps off the blocks Wednesday night and runs through Saturday. Streaming options are available via ESPN+.
Follow reporter Nick Rodecap (@nickrodecap) for updates throughout the Indiana swim and dive season.
