Indiana's women's swimming and diving team continued to break records Thursday afternoon, as the early afternoon preliminaries in the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard Individual Medley and the 50-yard freestyle were completed.
Senior Allysa Vavra led the way for the Hoosiers, and booked a spot in the 200-yard IM finals after winning the prelims in a time of 1:56.36. Not only did Vavra set the pool record at the Campus Wellness and Recreation Center at the University of Iowa, she also broke the school record that she set in December 2011 at the Georgia Invitational. Vavra was the only IU swimmer to qualify for the 200 IM finals, though sophomore Bronwyn Pasloski (11th place, 2:00.26) and senior Kim Tracey (16th place, 2:00.92) will both be racing in the consolation heat.
Meanwhile, in the 500-yard freestyle prelims, IU sophomore Lindsay Vrooman and IU senior Brittany Strumbel both booked spots in tonight's final, as the two finished first and third out of the 79 original swimmers. Vrooman won the final qualifiers heat in a time of 4:41.32, a pool record, while Strumbel earned a time of 4:41.61 in the same heat, still good enough for third out of all swimmers. The two IU swimmers will compete against four from Minnesota, one from Iowa and one from Ohio State in tonight's final. Freshman Lauren Jordan and senior Courey Schaefer will also be competing in the consolation race.
In the final swimming preliminary of the day, the Hoosiers did not have as much success in the 50-yard freestyle preliminaries, as no single IU swimmer will advance to the final heat. Though IU senior Margaux Farrell, who finished in 12th place with a time of 22.91, earned the second-fastest time out of any IU swimmer this season, she will be the only IU representative competing in the consolation heat come Thursday night.
Finally, in the 1-meter diving preliminaries, senior Gabby Agostino and sophomore Kate Hillman finished in the top eight, meaning that they will advance to the final round tonight. Senior Christina Kouklakis and freshman Kathryn Connolly qualified for the consolation round.
Action will resume starting at 7:30 p.m. with five finals being fought for. As of this afternoon, the Hoosiers stood in second place with 68 points, only four behind the leading Wisconsin Badgers.
