Parratto to compete in first college meet
Jessica Parratto has traveled the world as an international diver.
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Jessica Parratto has traveled the world as an international diver.
Junior swimmer Brooklynn Snodgrass was named the Alberta International Female Swimmer of the Year at the Swim Alberta Awards Banquet on ?Saturday.
Three current and former IU swimmers were selected for the 2014-15 USA Swimming National Team, the organization announced Tuesday.
Michael Hixon has wanted to train with IU Coach Drew Johansen since he was 14 years old.
As just a sophomore, Brooklynn Snodgrass became only the second NCAA Champion in IU women’s swimming history, winning the 200-yard backstroke in 1:50.52, which was the second-fastest time in school history.
Weeks after earning bronze at the Commonwealth Games, IU junior Brooklynn Snodgrass picked up her second medal for the Canada National team Saturday at the 2014 Pan Pacific Championships in Australia.
IU swimmer and Calgary, Alberta native Brooklynn Snodgrass claimed a bronze medal Tuesday to finish her Commonwealth Games at the Tollcross Swimming Centre in Glasgow, Scotland.
After just one year of diving at the collegiate level, Michael Hixon is already a two-time NCAA Champion.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU swimming and diving program has announced its schedule for the 2014-15 season.Both the men’s and women’s teams will open the season at home against Auburn. Auburn’s men have won eight NCAA Championships, their most recent title coming in 2009. The Tigers were sixth at the NCAAs last season.The Auburn women have earned five titles in team history, most recently in 2007. They placed 14th in 2014, two spots behind the Hoosiers.IU’s annual meeting with Michigan and Texas will become a four-way meet this year with the addition of Louisville. The Texas men’s team was an NCAA runner-up last season, while Michigan placed fourth and Louisville 11th, one spot behind IU.The first half of the season will conclude with USA Swimming Winter Nationals and the USA Diving National Championships.To kick off the 2015 portion of their season, the Hoosiers will travel to Madison, Wis., to face the Badgers and Notre Dame.A matchup against Purdue Jan. 24 in West Lafayette will serve as Senior Day for all programs. The IU men have defeated the Boilers four consecutive times and lead the overall series 29-6. The women have won in 12 of the past 13 meetings, including a 154.5-135.5 victory this past season.Both teams will conclude their regular season at the Louisville Invite Feb. 14 and 15.The 2015 Women’s Big Ten Championships will be Feb. 18-21 in Columbus, Ohio, while the men’s will take place Feb. 25 through 28 in Iowa City, Iowa. The women have finished second in the past three years. Brooklynn Snodgrass and Gia Dalesandro, who combined for seven individual Big Ten titles, are both returning this year.The men’s team also placed second in 2014, but graduated four Big Ten title winners in Cody Miller, Eric Ress, Darian Schmidt and Conor Murphy.The 2015 NCAA Championships will be March 19-21 in Greensboro, N.C., for the women and March 26-28 in Iowa City, Iowa, for the men.“As has been our practice in past years, IU swimming and diving will again challenge itself against some of the very best programs in the NCAA as we continue to strive for a national championship,” head coach Ray Looze said in a June 13 press release.Grace Palmieri
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU swimming team added a pair of international swimmers this week.Ali Khalafalla from Cairo and Grace Vertigans from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, will begin their stint with the program this fall.Khalafalla attended Fort Union Military Academy in Virginia, where he has school records in short course meters 100-freestyle and 200-freestyle.Khalafalla was named the school’s Most Outstanding Swimmer and earned All-American honors. He was also a member of the National Honors Society.“In my opinion, Ali is one of the best kept secrets on the U.S. sprinting scene in the class of 2015,” IU Coach Ray Looze said in a press release.Vertigans spent her youth in Dubai and moved to Colchester, England, when she was 13.She attended Plymouth College in England, and she won the 50-meter butterfly and the 400-meter freestyle relay in the December 2013 in the World School Games in Brazil.Also, in the World Junior Championships this past year, Vertigans’ British team won silver at the 400-meter medley relay.“Grace is one of the very top 18 and under sprint freestylers in the world,” Looze said in the release. Beyond her talents in the pool, Grace is extremely team-oriented and will fit in well with the Hoosier family atmosphere. She is an outstanding student, and our staff is excited to help Grace reach her Olympic dreams.”Evan Hoopfer
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Dennis Dale has been named the associate head coach for the IU men’s and women’s swimming team, Head Coach Ray Looze announced Monday.Dale spent the past 29 years at the helm of the University of Minnesota men’s swimming program. Under his direction, the team won seven Big Ten titles, and Dale was Big Ten Coach of the Year six times.“Dennis Dale brings a wealth of swimming knowledge to our staff,” Looze said in a May 12 release. “Not only is he one of the NCAA all-time great coaches, but is a first-class individual who puts his swimmers needs above all else. There are very few people involved in swimming who possess are greater passion for the sport.”Dale’s duties officially begin July 1. He will join Kyle Hastings in working with the men’s and women’s sprint groups.“It is my belief that by assigning two full-time staff members to sprinting we will take the necessary steps needed to move IU back into contention for the Big Ten title and into the NCAA top-five national rankings as we ultimately pursue an NCAA championship,” Looze said.Dale coached the Golden Gophers to five consecutive top-10 NCAA finishes from 2000-04. His team has placed no lower than fourth in the Big Ten in each of the past 26 seasons. Dale coached more than 100 different All-Americans in the past 20 years.Minnesota was also home to 48 individual Big Ten title winners during Dale’s tenure.Before being hired at Minnesota, Dale spent 13 years as head boy’s coach at Burnsville High School. Dale coached the team to four Minnesota state championships, and was named Coach of the Year in his final four seasons.“I am excited and thrilled to join Coach Looze and his staff, as well as the Indiana family,” Dale said.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Two Hoosiers took first place earlier this month at the East Coast Swimming Championships in Atlanta.Junior Hunter Hoffman, an exercise science major, finished first in two events.Hoffman, originally from Anderson, Ind., finished first in the 50-yard free event in 20.61 seconds. He also finished first in the 100-yard free, breaking the record with a time of 44.75 seconds. The previous record was 45.93. Freshman Taylor Johnson, also an exercise science major, finished first in one event and second in another.Johnson placed first in the 50-yard butterfly, finishing in 25.89 seconds. She also placed second in the 100-yard butterfly, coming in with a time of 58.92 seconds. Hoffman has swam competitively for nine years and Johnson for eight. Both swimmers had similar success in high school, receiving conference and sectional titles, and were state qualifiers. Johnson said she admired one of her former coaches from her hometown of Greenfield, Ind., before coming to IU. He had been her coach from sixth grade through her junior year of high school before he left for another position. “He taught me to swim, and he kind of stepped in as a father figure to a lot of us, too,” Johnson said.He was the first coach with whom she went to state. Hoffman said his club coach from Anderson influenced him.“He was the only reason I got out of the floating stage of swimming,” he said.Hoffman and Johnson said they have similar styles of preparation for competition.“I like to know my competition,” Johnson said. “I like to pump myself up and get nervous and get excited for it.”Hoffman said he enjoys doing the same, reviewing the times of his competition to see how close they are.He said when he gets on the block, he likes to do “the Michael Phelps thing” with his arms, stretching in a similar fashion as the Olympian.“It looks kind of goofy, but it’s fun,” Hoffman said.Johnson said she listens to music with “a good beat” before competing. Hoffman takes a different approach.“I listen to Maynard Ferguson before I swim,” he said. “We used to listen to the Pokémon theme song before home meets.”Hoffman and Johnson also said they have different pre-competition meals.“I usually get a chicken biscuit from McDonald’s and two hash browns,” Hoffman said. Johnson said she prefers to eat lighter, generally sticking to granola bars. To celebrate their victories, Hoffman and Johnson accompanied the rest of club to a steak house in the area. Their end-of-season banquet is a celebration of the success the club and the individual swimmers experienced throughout the year, Hoffman said.Johnson said the club accepts swimmers of all levels.Hoffman recalled his experience when he first joined the club.“Going into it I was nervous, but by the end of the first practice I was already buddy–buddy with a lot of people,” Hoffman said. The club is a very open group of people, Johnson said, and she makes a conscious attempt to learn the names of all the people who are trying it for the first time. “It’s a good group, like a friend group,” Johnson said. “I would definitely tell them to try it.”Both Hoffman and Johnson said anyone curious about looking into the club is more than welcome to check it out.“You won’t find a group of people easier to get along with than IU Swim Club,” Hoffman said.Junior Daniel Xu, director of communications for the club, said the club strives to maintain an inclusive atmosphere.“It’s like a family away from family,” Xu said.Xu said the club is always looking to expand and add new members every year, emphasizing that anyone can join at any time, and there is no cut-off day to join.With nationals in August, Hoffman and Jonson said they will continue to swim during the summer with clubs from home.Both Hoffman and Johnson expressed an interest in swimming after college at the Masters level.“I’ll be swimming until I can’t walk anymore,” Johnson said.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU sophomore swimmer Brooklynn Snodgrass was named to Canada’s national team for the 2014 Commonwealth Games and the 2014 Pan Pacific Championships.At last week’s Canadian Trials, Snodgrass placed second in the 100-meter backstroke with a time of 1:00.23. She needed to finish under 1:01.25 to be selected.Snodgrass also finished second in the 50-meter backstroke and fifth in the 200-meter backstroke races in the meet.Swimming Canada changed selection policies this year. It focused on choosing swimmers who had the best opportunity to compete internationally throughout their careers.“Our selection policies this year for both teams were based on world standards,” Swimming Canada High Performance Director John Atkinson said in a press release.“We set criteria for both teams based on the 16th-fastest time in each event from the Barcelona 2013 FINA World Championships.”Snodgrass will compete against 20 others at the Pan Pacific Championships Aug. 21-25 in Queensland, Australia. The Commonwealth Games will be held July 24 through 29 in Glasgow, Scotland, where Snodgrass will be one of 20 female swimmers.Three weeks ago, Snodgrass won the 200-yard backstroke at the NCAA Championships to become the second NCAA Champion in IU Swimming history.Grace Palmieri
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For the second consecutive year, senior Darian Schmidt is the Big Ten Diver of the Year, the conference announced Tuesday.At this year’s Big Ten Championships, Schmidt won both the 1-meter (381.30 points) and 3-meter (451.90) springboard title. It was his second career title on the 1-meter.Schmidt’s success earned him Big Ten Diver of the Championships for the third straight season.This past weekend at the NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships, Schmidt placed sixth in the 3-meter competition. He earned All-America honors in the event for the third year in a row.Last year, Schmidt was All-American in 1-meter and 3-meter, in sixth and third place, respectively.This marks the third year in a consecutive that a Hoosier has been named Big Ten Diver of the Year. Zac Nees won the award in 2012.Schmidt becomes the fourth multiple-time winner and 12th Big Ten Diver of the Year in IU history.Grace Palmieri
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After a second-place finish at the men’s Big Ten Championships, four swimmers and two divers from IU’s men’s swimming and diving team will compete at this weekend’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships in Austin, Texas.They will try for a third consecutive top-10 finish. Last year, the Hoosiers placed ninth, their highest finish since 1980 and with their highest point total (201) since 1975.IU Coach Ray Looze said this year they will rely on quality rather than quantity.“We’ve got less people here than we did last year, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll score less points,” he said. “We’re not as deep, but I believe we’ve got pretty good quality.”IU will have a total of nine competitors. Freshmen Max Irwin and Anze Tavcar and sophomore Tanner Kurz are relay-only swimmers.Senior Eric Ress enters the meet as the top seed in the 200-yard backstroke. He has the top five times in IU history in the event and most recently won the Big Ten title.Ress said despite high expectations, he will treat the race like any other. He said, more than anything, relays will be important to the team’s success.“The mentality for the guys as a whole is really geared toward relay performances,” Ress said. “That’s where you get the most points. And rather than just swimming for ourselves, we’re swimming to try to get the most points individually as we can to contribute to the team score.”At the 2011 NCAA Championships, Ress was runner-up in both the 100- and 200-yard backstroke.This year, he is joined by junior Steve Schmuhl and seniors Cody Miller and James Wells as the four individual qualifiers.Schmuhl, Miller and Ress are returning All-Americas from 2013.Miller said the team’s preparation since the Big Ten Championships stands out from previous years.“Last week everyone was hitting the fastest pace times we’ve ever seen,” he said. “We have four individual qualifiers this year, and all of us have been in A finals at this meet in previous years. The team is more prepared than we have ever been before.“Senior divers Darian Schmidt and Emad Abdelatif will compete in the 1-meter and 3-meter springboard competitions. They qualified at the NCAA Zone C Diving Championships.Schmidt was the Big Ten Champion in both the 1-meter and 3-meter and was named Big Ten Diver of the Championships for the third consecutive year. This is Abdelatif’s second trip to the NCAAs.The team arrived at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swim Center at the beginning of the week.Looze said having a few days at the pool before the meet starts is crucial for both mental and physical preparation.“NCAAs are such a brutally punishing meet from the event load to the intensity,” he said. “You have to take everything into consideration, making sure that we are completely well-rested going into this. This is one of the only meets where an Olympian can get beat around.”The Hoosiers will compete for the 25th top-10 finish in IU history.Looze said he looks forward to how his swimmers will take advantage of the opportunity to swim at a national meet.“This has the least margin for error of any meet I’ve ever been to,” he said. “It really just matters what you do here in any given year. Right now, this book is yet to be written.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU sophomore Brooklynn Snodgrass is the Big Ten Swimmer of the Year, the conference announced Tuesday.Snodgrass became IU’s second swimming national champion at the NCAA Championships last weekend by winning the 200-yard backstroke.Her time 1:50.52 is a career best.Snodgrass joined 2010 National Champion Kate Fesenko as one of two Hoosiers to swim the event in less than one minute, fifty-one seconds. Earlier in the meet, Snodgrass placed fourth in the 100-yard backstroke for the Hoosiers.At the Big Ten Championships at the end of February, Snodgrass had four first-place finishes. She won the 100-yard backstroke in 51.65 seconds and the 200-yard backstroke in 1:51.43.Snodgrass was also part of the winning 200-yard medley relay and the 400-yard medley relay teams.Snodgrass is the third-consecutive Hoosier to win the award.Senior Lindsay Vrooman won in 2013 and Allysa Vavra in 2012.IU has had the Big Ten Swimmer of the Year in five of the past six years.-Grace Palmieri
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For the second time in the University’s history, IU swimming has an NCAA champion.Sophomore Brooklynn Snodgrass won the 200-yard backstroke in one minute 50.52 seconds, and the IU women’s swimming and diving team finished 12th at the NCAA Championships Saturday in Minneapolis.Snodgrass joins Kate Fesenko, the 200 backstroke winner in 2010, as the only two NCAA champions in IU swimming’s history.“My strategy for the 200 back was not meant to develop a win,” Snodgrass said. “I just wanted to get the best performance out of myself possible. I have been training all year to get my splits close, and I finally did it. It’s really unbelievable right now.”Just before Snodgrass’s preliminary race, an IU relay team entered to race in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Snodgrass said just minutes before the relay, the coaches decided they wouldn’t compete.That would have been the last collegiate race for seniors Kait Flederbach and Stephanie Armstrong.“I will never forget the fact that Kait and Steph gave up their last college relay swim ever in order for me to rest before my backstroke,” Snodgrass said. “I wasn’t going to let them down in the race.”Snodgrass now owns the second-fastest time in school history. She and Fesenko are the only two Hoosiers to finish under one minute 51 seconds in the 200 backstroke.IU Coach Ray Looze recalled Snodgrass telling him after the race that her strategy was to lie back the first 50 yards and then go.“The backstroke field here, the 100 and 200, were among the best compilation of backstrokers that the NCAA has ever seen,” Looze said. “It was just a genius stroke of strategy on her part, and it paid off with an NCAA title.”Just before Snodgrass’s win, senior Lindsay Vrooman set a new school and Big Ten record during her final race as a Hoosier.Her time of 15 minutes 44.45 seconds in the 1,650-yard freestyle was fifth overall.Vrooman was also fourth in the 500-yard freestyle on the first day of the meet. She earned the second-fastest time in school history and now has six of the top seven times.Battling a stomach illness all week, Vrooman said she had hoped to place better in her final meet.“I started feeling worse as the meet went on, and I knew the mile would be rough,” she said. “(By the 1,650) I was feeling a little bit better, but still wanted to do what I could — which was better than I thought considering my circumstances.”Snodgrass and Bronwyn Pasloski both set school records on the second day of the competition.In the 100-yard backstroke, Snodgrass placed fourth in 51.05 seconds, breaking a six-year-old school record. Pasloski won the 100-yard breaststroke consolation final in 59.39 seconds.Senior diver Kate Hillman earned her first-ever NCAA points.She was 10th overall in the platform competition, finishing with 307.20 points, and less than two points away from making the championship final.“I don’t think this team could’ve given anything more, from Kate Hillman scoring here for the first time ever to Lindsay Vrooman swimming the mile sick,” Looze said. “I don’t know if a team has given more. They just would never say die.”Looze said that although they hoped to place higher as a team, he is proud of how they ended the season.“We wanted to be eighth or ninth, but we just didn’t have everybody rolling like we hoped,” he said. “Sometimes a national ranking doesn’t fully tell the story, but 12th is a great place to finish.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Senior diver Darian Schmidt won the 3-meter springboard competition at the NCAA Zone C Diving Championships to earn a spot at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships.After 12 rounds, Schmidt had 794.20 points. He was one of six Hoosiers to place in the event. Senior Emad Abdelatif was sixth with 676.90 points and freshman Joshua Arndt was seventh with 674.50.For the women, senior Kate Hillman placed 13th overall. She was 16th after the preliminary rounds and finished with 546.10 points.A total of eight men and nine women from Zone C will qualify for the NCAA Championships.Competition resumes today with the women’s 3-meter and men’s 1-meter.Also today, redshirt freshman diver Jessica Parratto will compete at the FINA Diving World Series in Beijing in the 10-meter synchronized competition.Grace Palmieri
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It was three weeks before the start of the 2013-14 school year, and just days before the IU swimming team left for the U.S. Open in Irvine, Calif.More than 1,500 miles away from Bloomington, Kait Flederbach was packing up everything she owned. She was preparing to return home to Indiana, just in time for a short visit to IU’s campus.“We were able to barely squeeze it in so she could see campus and get to meet the kids who happened to be here at that time,” IU Coach Ray Looze said.IU was the only school Flederbach had heard from — the only school she would visit before making a decision on where to spend her final year of eligibility.During the U.S. Open the following week, Looze received a call.“She said, ‘If I were to come to Indiana, would I be able to go to this conference for USA Swimming in September?’” Looze said. “And I go, ‘Absolutely.’ And she goes, ‘Well, in that case, I’m a Hoosier.’ She was just joking around, but that’s the way Kait is.”After making the decision to leave Arizona, accepting IU’s offer was an easy one, Flederbach said.“The team was such a family,” she said. “I couldn’t even believe how welcoming they were. You could just see the chemistry between everybody. It wasn’t fake.”“Immediately, I knew it was perfect.”***A seven-time All-American swimmer, Flederbach became the newest member of IU’s women’s swim team. She was the fifth and final member of the 2013-14 senior class.She spent her first three years of eligibility at the University of Arizona, a swimming program consistently ranked in the top 25.At last year’s NCAA Championships, the sprinter was 17th in the 50-yard freestyle and 20th in the 200-yard freestyle.She was also a part of Arizona’s record-setting 400-yard freestyle relay.Flederbach even competed on the international stage. At the 2012 Olympic trials, she placed sixth in the 50-meter freestyle and 22nd in the 100-meter freestyle.Yet, despite her success in the pool, Flederbach wasn’t happy.Before her sophomore year, coaching changes within the Arizona program, including a new head coach, provoked a tough transition.Still, she gave it two year’s trial, competing through her sophomore and junior years. She said the atmosphere became increasingly more difficult for her as time went on.“The whole atmosphere of the team and everything just became so different, and it was really toxic for me,” Flederbach said. “I was so unhappy to where I knew I wasn’t going to swim on the team anymore and whether I was even going to swim for my last year.”She had originally chosen to attend Arizona rather than accept offers from Wisconsin or Kentucky. It was the best fit for her both athletically and academically, she said.Although Flederbach admits she had no immediate preference on which school she would attend, there was no question whether or not she would continue swimming collegiately after high school.“It was kind of just a given, because I had been swimming for so long and I loved it,” Flederbach said. “I really wanted to continue it and see how far I could go. It wasn’t really a conscious decision, I just knew I would.”***She said IU wasn’t even on her radar at the time. She didn’t want to stay close to home. “I definitely wanted to go out of state, go far away and see more places, just go somewhere really new,” she said.Three years later, she would no longer swim for Arizona.Giving up the sport she loved, however, wasn’t an option. Flederbach needed to find another school that would take her.That’s when she received a message from IU junior Allie Day.It was July 2013 and news was out that Flederbach had been granted her release from Arizona.Just more than a month before the start of her senior year, she was searching for a school that she could call home.“I went in to the head coach and asked for my release,” Flederbach said. “Eventually I got released to talk to other schools, and when that hit the news, she messaged me.”Day and Flederbach grew up swimming together. As a part of the same swimming zone in Indiana, the two attended national meets together, competing in their respective events.Day went on to swim at Center Grove High School, while Flederbach went to Westfield.Years later, the two were reunited as teammates.For Flederbach, IU didn’t just represent a chance to compete. It has taught her to love swimming all over again, she said.“I have a totally different perspective on swimming and on life, just because I don’t take things for granted now and I really appreciate all the small things,” she said. “I just feel so a part of the team. I’ve never had so much fun swimming.”***Throughout the season, Flederbach has recorded personal best times in every one of her events.And that was just the first step toward etching her name in the IU history books.At this year’s Big Ten Championships, she became the fastest Hoosier ever to swim the 100-yard freestyle.She was also part of the school’s record-setting 200-yard freestyle relay team and 400-yard medley relay team. In the 200 free she earned the second-fastest split in school history with a time of 22.40 seconds.She said her experience at IU has not only come with racing success, but has taught her how much she has learned about herself.“I’ve just learned a lot about how to deal with adversity and truly have a positive outlook,” she said. “No matter what happens, happiness is so important. If you can just make the smallest tweak in your outlook, it makes a huge difference.”While this is her last year of athletic eligibility, Flederbach has a year of school left.After completing her degree in psychology, she hopes to go on to graduate school to study clinical psychology and eventually help patients with pain management or mental illness.When her season ends, Flederbach’s swimming career won’t be finished.She, along with a group of seniors, will continue to train and compete in meets over the summer. She said they hope to compete through next year as well.As for the next Summer Olympics, Flederbach said she is taking it one day at a time.“I don’t know about the 2016 trials,” she said. “I’m terrible at planning, so I don’t know. We’ll see.”After leaving her home state in search of adventure, Flederbach has come back home to find something she now realizes is most important — her happiness.That joy is constantly apparent, Looze said.“It feels like she’s been a Hoosier the entire time,” he said. “That’s how good of a fit it was for us. We all want to see Kait happy.”In her one year as a Hoosier, Flederbach has left her mark on IU swimming in more ways than one.“She is one of those teammates that come into your life so quickly and make such a positive impact on you that it’s hard to imagine how you got through life without them,” teammate Brooklynn Snodgrass said. “She is always there to listen to you or there when you need a good laugh, cry or race.”@Grace_Palmieri
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>An IU diving sweep and a strong final day led the men’s swimming and diving team to a second-place finish at the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Mich.Senior Darian Schmidt won both the 1-meter and 3-meter titles, and was named Big Ten Diver of the Year and Big Ten Diver of the Championships for the second straight year. “The whole team really did a great job,” IU Coach Drew Johansen said. “Everybody contributed. I don’t know how many personal bests or season bests we had, but it’s just been an exciting three days and a lot of fun.”On the 3-meter springboard, four IU divers finished in the top eight. Freshman Joshua Arndt placed third, senior Emad Abdelatif placed fifth and senior Conor Murphy placed seventh.Murphy was the platform champion with 434.85 points, completing a sweep of the diving events.Both Murphy and Schmidt were first-team All-Big Ten honorees.Johansen was named the Big Ten Diving Coach of the Year in his first year at IU.“It’s an incredible honor,” he said. “I’m humbled by it. But, the team did great. We defended two titles, which is one of the hardest things to do in sports. That recognition is 100 percent because of the divers.”For the swimmers, championship season didn’t get off to a very strong start, IU Coach Ray Looze said.The first night, IU finished fourth in both the 200-yard medley relay and the 800-yard freestyle relay. Despite setting two top-five times in school history, they fell to fourth place going into day two.The Hoosiers went 3-4-5 in the 200-yard individual medley during the second day of competition.Junior Steve Schmuhl posted an NCAA A-cut qualifying time of one minute 42.05 seconds, a career best and the third-fastest time in school history.The 400-yard medley relay team of senior Eric Ress, senior Cody Miller, freshman Max Irwin and senior James Wells set a new school record to finish third.Miller said having a less experienced team hindered the Hoosiers’ performance during the first few days.“I think the majority of the guys on the team are freshman, if not maybe some sophomores, but we’re really a very young team,” he said. “It’s the first Big Tens for a lot of people, and it’s a lot of pressure.”IU had climbed to second place after the second day with 216 points, still far behind Michigan’s 308.Miller, Ress, freshman Anze Tavcar and junior Yianni Thermos started the third-day finals with a fifth-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle relay.Schmuhl was third in the 400-yard individual medley.Irwin made his first championship final in an individual event as he placed eighth with 47.76 seconds, just off his career-best prelim time of 47.67 seconds.In the 100-yard backstroke, IU went 3-4, with Ress third and Wells fourth.While his upperclassmen stepped up toward the end of the meet, Looze said his team’s lack of depth has been a recurring problem.“We need to get deeper, but we knew that coming in,” he said. “Our freshmen struggled in the meet, and that’s something as a coaching staff we need to adjust.”It wasn’t until the final day of competition the Hoosiers got their first win of the meet.Ress completed his Big Ten backstroke career with a new school and Big Ten meet record. He won the 200-yard backstroke with a time of one minute 38.89 seconds.Just minutes later, Miller made history by becoming only the second IU swimmer ever to win an event four consecutive years. He won the 200-yard breaststroke in one minute 52.58 seconds, the second-fastest time in school history.Miller said although the thought of making history crossed his mind, he was focused on scoring points for the team.“We hadn’t had any individual wins in any of the swimming events until the last day, and about 30 minutes before the race, Eric won the 200 backstroke,” he said. “I knew I had to win my race after that because that just fired me up.”IU finished with 564 points. This is the second year in a row the Hoosiers have fallen short of the reigning NCAA Champion Michigan.Looze said even with their fastest times, they had no chance of winning.“What I’m most proud about is we took what we had and maximized it,” he said. “We really didn’t have our A game, but we finished the highest we possibly could. Even if we had our A game, we were not going to defeat Michigan, they’re just too good.”The team now looks to the NCAA Championships four weeks away.Last year the men’s team finished ninth. Miller said although they placed fourth in individual points, their relays held them back — that will be a focus of practice during the coming weeks.“The bottom line is we need to do a better job of getting them prepared both mentally and physically for this,” Looze said. “The good news is we got NCAAs coming up in four weeks, and hopefully we can go into that meet, which is even more important than this, and swim faster.”