1650 yard freestyle
With the team scoring lead insurmountable in favor of Indiana, Minnesota’s Ashley Steenvorden took home the title in 15:58.62, giving her three Big Ten titles in this event in as many seasons. She was solid the whole way through, letting only one 50-yard split slip below the 29.5 level, and broke 16 minutes for the first time since 2009. This is a positive performance for the swimmer who was 9th in this race at last year’s NCAA Championships.
Sophomore Caitlin Hamilton, who has been called into heavy action in both sprints and distance races for the Boilermakers, was second in 16:05.00. Minnesota’s Loren Brandon picked up a second medal for the Gophers with her third place time of 16:08.36. This is one of Minnesota’s strongest events, including 3 of the top 5 finishers and 6 scorers overall. Indiana’s top finisher was freshman Lindsay Vrooman in 4th at 16:12.51. She will be among the top freshman milers at NCAA’s if she can continue to improve off of that mark.
200 yard backstroke
Wisconsin’s Maggie Meyer picked up her second event win in as many individuals (she swam 5 relays) in the meet with a 200 backstroke victory in 1:52.07. Though this was an NCAA A-cut time and a pool record (which is impressive given that last year’s 200 back champion swam for hosts Indiana), it was well off of the 1:51.5 that she had gone earlier in the season. Indiana’s Taylor Wohrley jumped a spot from prelims and took second-place honors in 1:53.7, followed by Amy Modglin of Penn State in third at 1:54.19.
100 yard freestyle
Ohio State freshman Megan Detro picked up her first Big Ten title with a 48.58 in the 100 free. This was a little off of her 48.48 from prelims that set a pool record, but still a pretty good time from a conference not generally known for its sprinting. The runner-up in this event was Ariel Martin of Purdue, who peaked at exactly the right point of her season. Prior to today, she hadn’t gone better than a 50.4 this year, and her 48.68 in finals was another seven tenths faster than her prelims time. Indiana continued to use its depth to extend its lead with 3rd and 4th place finishes from Margaux Farrell (48.76) and Brittany Strumbel (48.88).
50 free champ Beckie Thompson from Wisconsin finished 5th in 49.24.
200 yard breaststroke
Jillian Tyler, who very nearly set the NCAA record in the 100 breaststroke, came out guns blazing in the 200 version. She swam an impressive 1:01.1 halfway split en route to a 2:07.11 200 time that broke the Big Ten Championships and Conference records. This time also makes her the 5th fastest 200 yard breaststroker in history (behind Rebecca Soni, Tara Kirk, Cal’s Caitlin Leverenz’s 2:06.5 from December, and last year’s champion Alia Atkinson). Her bombshell overshadowed teammate Haley Spencer’s quite impressive time of 2:07.61 in second-place. That was also an NCAA Automatic qualifying time and moves her in to the top 10 on the all-time list.
Indiana’s Alyssa Vavra, who already had double IM titles under her belt, scored a third-place finish, and a second NCAA A-cut, in this event with a time of 2:09.71. As a sign of how good the two Minnesotans were, Vavra was able to swim an A-cut, but was still two seconds away from even a silver medal. Wisconsin’s Ashley Wanland, who was the former Big Ten record holder in this event (and also has an entry on the all-time top 10 list) was disappointing in fourth at 2:10.34.
This event was sort of a microcosm of the Big Ten Championship as a whole. Wisconsin finished much lower than they had hoped, and Minnesota, despite individual dominance, still lost even more ground in the team-scoring race.
200 yard butterfly
Indiana’s Brittany Barwegen has been in a slump of sorts in the 200 fly. During her sophomore season all the way back at Indiana’s fall taper meet in November of 2008, she set her career-best time in the 200 fly at 1:56.22 (which also happens to be the pool record). She hasn’t even come close to that mark in the three seasons since (including a redshirt year), until this race. She put down a 1:56.28 for her first career Big Ten title. This will be a great springboard performance to carry her into her last NCAA Championship meet and hopefully some points for the Hoosiers.
Platform diving
Indiana had, without a doubt, the two best divers in this event. The question is: which was more impressive in this event? Normally, it is easy enough to look to the standings for that, especially in diving, but this was a rare instance where that’s not so obvious. That is because Amy Conzad (371.5), who was the consolation champion, easily outpaced the Big Ten Champion Laura Ryan (348.55). Conzad was relegated to the second level after a disastrous preliminaries that included both a balk and a failed dive. But she didn’t let that keep her from posting a Big Ten Championship meet record score in the B-final that is her best by almost 70 points, and also the second-highest score in program history. That’s a truly gutsy performance from the sophomore.
400 yard fresestyle relay
The Wisconsin 400 free relay just barely missed an NCAA “A” time, but still posted a very good mark of 3:15.06, and were probably most concerned with avoiding another false start (they did so both in the 200 free relay finals and again when they time-trialed the event). They were anchored by Maggie Meyer, who obviously had enough rest after her 200 backstroke and was able to put up a 48.01 split. Ohio State’s Megan Detro, who won the individual 100, went second on Ohio State’s relay and posted an equally impressive 48.03 to lead the Buckeyes to a runner-up mark of 3:16.10. Indiana finished third, but by this point were uncatchable in the team scoring and might have lost focus a little. Their time of 3:17.03 was probably close to a full second slower than they could have gone, as only Sara Delay’s 49.41 split was faster than the swimmers’ times in the individual final. It’s still a solid mark that should qualify them for NCAA’s, and is better than the team’s best time from the 2009-2010 season.
Team Scoring
It was no huge surprise that Indiana won this meet, but the amount that they won by (243 points) had to have shocked even the most fervent observers. They extended their lead by almost 100 points on the final day of competition alone, and used an incredible level of depth, including sprint groups that were greatly bolstered by freshmen, to get this done. Minnesota and Ohio State were both very good in specific areas, but didn’t have the bredth to challenge the Hoosiers. The real disappointment of the meet was Wisconsin, who finished all the way back in 7th. Even without the relay DQ, they would’ve just barely jumped Purdue for 5th place, after some commentators were buzzing them up as potential champions. Have no fear though, this top-heavy team is going to be very good at NCAA’s, and could even be the highest-placing Big Ten squad.
1. Indiana 821
2. Minnesota 578
3. Ohio State 456
4. Penn State 391
5. Purdue 385.5
6. Michigan 367
7. Wisconsin 360.5
8. Iowa 178
9. Northwestern 151
10. Michigan State 86
11. Illinois 82
