The two leaders after one day of the 2013 Big Ten Women’s Championship, Indiana and Minnesota, stayed nearly stride-for-stride as the meet headed into its second day of competition, and first involving individual events. There are a few spoilers lurking, however.
Indiana’s Lindsay Vrooman took the top seed in the 500 free in 4:38.40; this is a race she’s largely expected to run away with at this meet, though Minnesota’s Kiera Janzen did enough to make her nervous by cutting her season-best by 8 seconds and going a 4:39.99 for the 2nd seed. Both teams ended up with three swimmers in that A-Final, with Ohio State’s Alexandra Norris doing her best to break up a sweep by taking the 3rd seed in 4:42.34.
Penn State’s Chelsea Weedman took top honors in the 200 IM in 1:57.55. She used a big breaststroke split of 33.6 to pull from 7th to 1st in a matter of just 50 yards, so don’t count her out if you see her lagging behind at the halfway mark this evening.
Meanwhile, Tori Simenec out-split Weedman on every leg of this race except that backstroke, but the margin was so large that Simenec slid to 2nd, though not by much, in 1:57.79. She and Indiana freshman Brooklyn Snodgrass (out in a 53.99 in the morning) are the ones who will push the pace early in this event; Snodgrass ended up with the 6th seed in 1:59.19. Her sophomore teammate Dorina Szerekes broke through big in this race with a 1:57.91 for the 3rd seed. She was only a 2:03 mid-season, so this drop was really unexpected, at least by outside observers.
Minnesota only got 1 A-Finalist as compared to Indiana’s two, but a 3-0 margin in the B-Final for the Gophers should negate that scoring wise. Michigan continued to swim out-of-their-minds with two of their own in the A-Final.
Minnesota may finally be able to break tonight’s scoring open just a little in the 50 free, where they got three swimmers into the A-Final. That includes the number three (Erin Caflisch – 22.22) and number four (Rebecca Weiland – 22.38) seeds. There’s two great sprinters sitting ahead of them, however. Northwestern’s Taylor Reynolds is the second seed in 22.14, and Wisconsin’s Ivy Martin takes top honors in 21.84.
That clocking makes Martin the first woman in Big Ten history to go under the 22-second barrier, breaking the 22.02 set by former teammate Rebecca Thompson last season. Her sister Ruby Martin is the top seed in the B-Final in 22.65. As proclaimed pre-meet: as go the Martin sisters, so go the Badgers, and the Martin sisters are going very well early.
Indiana will have one scorer tonight in this race; sophomore Sara Delay tied for 15th in 22.93.
A huge thank you goes out to Morgan Priestley for compiling these numbers
| A/B/C Finals for Big Ten Women’s Day 2 Championships | |||
| A Final | B Final | C Final (not scored) | |
| MINN | 7 | 5 | 5 |
| IND | 5 | 1 | 2 |
| PSU | 4 | 3 | 4 |
| OSU | 2 | 4 | 5 |
| MICH | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| WISC | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| PUR | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| NEB | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| NW | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| IOWA | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| MSU | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| ILL | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Live results available here (note new location, after issues with yesterday’s link).
Becky Thompson actually led off the 200 free relay at NCAAs last year in a 21.94, so ivy is the 2nd women under 22
Dude, that picture is from last year’s big ten meet!