Illinois Illini vs. Nebraska Cornhuskers (Women Only)
- Saturday, January 18, 2025
- University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska
- Short Course Yards (25 yards), Dual Meet
- Team Scores: Nebraska 174.5 – Illinois 125.5
10 individual event titles and two relay wins carried the host Nebraska Cornhuskers to a dominant 174.5-125.5 win over Illinois on Senior Day on Saturday. Nebraska is now 11-6 all-time over their Big Ten foes.
Both teams wore technical racing suits for the meet.
While the seniors were celebrated on Saturday, it was a junior, First Team All-American Gena Jorgenson, that was the top performer for Nebraska.
She won the 1000 free in 9:43.79, a season best, and later picked up wins in the 200 back (1:58.09) and 400 IM (4:15.33). The South Dakota native finished 8th at NCAAs last year in the mile, and is way ahead of schedule this season: she was 10 seconds faster on Saturday in the 1000 free than she was against Illinois on the same weekend last season (and was eight seconds better mid-season).
This was Nebraska’s first meet of the new semester, but it was the fifth time this season where Jorgenson went 3-for-3 in individual events (Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, South Dakota State, and now Illinois).
While Illinois came away from their corn-belt trip with an 0-2 record, they had encouraging performances both against Iowa on Friday and Nebraska on Saturday.
After three individual wins against the Hawkeyes, senior Sydney Stoll picked up three more against Nebraska. That makes her 10-for-10 in dual meet individual events since returning from holiday training.
On Saturday, she won the 100 free (49.86), 200 free (1:47.54), and most notably the 100 fly in a new personal best and Illinois School Record of 53.97, making her the first swimmer sub-54 in school history. Her previous lifetime best was a 54.00 from last year’s Big Ten Championships; she was 54.04 at the mid-season Hawkeye Invitational.
Top 5 Performers All-Time, University of Illinois, Women’s 100 Yard Fly
- Sydney Stoll – 53.97 (2025)
- Megan Vuong – 54.46 (2019)
- Alison Meng – 54.47 (2014)
- (TIE) Lori Lynn (2015)/Athena Salafatinos (2022) – 54.51
Stoll was a 55.8 butterflier coming out of high school and didn’t swim the race as a freshman, instead focusing on freestyle and backstroke events. She is one of the biggest success stories since Jeana Kempe took over the program in summer 2022. While the team was last at the Big Ten Championships last season, in two-and-a-half seasons they’ve broken school records in all-but-five individual swimming events, many of those have been broken multiple times.
Aside from Stoll, though, this meet was mostly Cornhuskers, who were 8th at Big Tens last season.
That included a win in the 100 back from Ital ian Virginia Consiglio in 54.09. This was her first official meet for Nebraska, and her time on Saturday already offers a 1.9 second improvement over Jorgenson, who was previously the backstroker on their 400 medley relay.
She is one of three Italians on the team’s current roster; senior Cateria Bissiachi won the 200 fly on Saturday in 2:01.50.
The rest of the Nebraska wins were pretty well spread out, including sophomore Abby Baxter sweeping the springboard diving events.
Nebraska will wrap their regular season with a two-day dual at the end of January against another Big Ten opponent Rutgers. Illinois will welcome in Eastern Illinois on February 1 to wrap their dual meet season. Both will then head to Columbus for the Big Ten Championships on February 19.
Congrats on an amazing swim. Fantastic endurance. In my younger days, I would have been hard-pressed to do 10 x 10km workouts across 5 days.