A duet of Big Ten teams hosted one-day Last Chance Meets this weekend as swimmers chased last-minute qualifying times ahead of Monday’s entry deadline. Distance swimmers had the biggest successes on Sunday, with big names earning their spots in Seattle.
Traditionally, between 28 and 31 men receive invites in each individual event.
Note that Wisconsin and Michigan also had Last Chance meets scheduled for this weekend, but they opted to travel to their rivals’ pools instead.
Minnesota Last Chance Meet
- March 9, 2025
- Jean K Freeman Aquatic Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
- 1 Day, Last Chance Meet
- Results
Minnesota 5th year Joey Tepper, a transfer from Tennessee, knocked almost nine seconds off his lifetime best in the 1650 free, finishing in 14:48.01. It also improves upon his season best of 14:56.82, which wasn’t going to make the cut.
While his new best time would have been under the invite time comfortably (14:54.92 was the last invited time last season). This season, it ranks him 23rd in the NCAA, which should get him an invite – but not nearly as comfortably, with a 14:48-high likely to be the cut line.
That is the same story for Wisconsin freshman Yoav Romano, who swam 4:13.37 in the 500 free on Sunday evening, which should land him around 24th or 25th in the NCAA, with 28-32 men usually invited in each individual event.
Wisconsin was scheduled to host a Last Chance on Saturday, but with a requirement for two teams to participate for a meet to be bona fide, they instead travelled to their rivals Minnesota to make sure both teams had a legitimate qualifying opportunity.
It wound up being a fruitful decision for Wisconsin. Besides Romano, senior Chris Morris swam 1:41.78 in the 200 IM, which improved his career best of 1:43.09 from the Big Ten Championships. That jumped him from 42nd in the NCAA to 21st and should lock up his NCAA invite with room to spare.
Ohio State Last Chance
- March 9, 2025
- McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion, Columbus, Ohio
- Short Course Yards (25 yards)
- Results
More success from distance swimmers, with Ohio State 5th year Charlie Clark swimming 14:47.44 in the 1650 free. That knocked about 10 seconds off his previous season best.
Clark is more of a long course specialist than short course specialist and was a member of the 2022 World Championship team.
That was the most excitement that Columbus saw. At the other end of the spectrum, a few sprinters pursued, but struck out, on improving their qualifying status.
Auburn sprinters Logan Tirheimer and Kalle Makinen, who swam the 50 free five times each at their home Last Chance Meet last week, went after it again on Sunday. Makinen swam four more times, including splits in the 100 free, but was unable to improve his season-best time of 19.25 from last week; while Tirheimer had three attempts and missed his season-best by .01 seconds.
Southern Illinois’ Alex Santiago, meanwhile, took two cracks at improving his best of 41.95 in the 100 free. He swam 42.23 in prelims and 42.54 in finals, so he’ll stand pat. Santiago is currently locked in a tie for 34th in the NCAA this season, but there are at least four guys ahead of him who seem unlikely to swim this event at NCAAs. That leaves him squarely on the bubble.
41.94 on the bubble. 🥶