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While the Nebraska women's swimming and diving team got a chance to preview the depth of the Big Ten with the start of the Big Ten Championships Wednesday night, the real competition set in on Thursday.
Preliminaries for individual events started Thursday morning at the University of Iowa Aquatic Center with the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard individual medley and 50-yard freestyle, along with the preliminaries for the one-meter diving competition.
No Husker swimmers made it back to finals for any of the three individual swimming events, but this task was much more difficult for them than last year as members of the Big 12.
With a range of about 80 to 100 swimmers competing in each individual event on Thursday, even gaining less than a second could drop a swimmer down multiple places. In addition, the cuts to make it back to finals were also much faster in the Big Ten than they were for the Huskers last year in the Big 12.
In the 500-yard freestyle for example, a time under 5:04.55 would have qualified a swimmer for the top 24 in the Big 12. In this years' Big Ten Championships however, a swimmer would have needed to go under 4:49.72 to swim in finals later that evening.
Although no swimmers made it to finals, there were some signs of improvement for the Huskers in the future. Out of the 23 swimmers that competed individually for the Huskers, 19 of them dropped time off of what they were seeded before preliminaries.
NU sophomore Bailey Pons had the highest place out of any of the Husker swimmers by placing 37th in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:53.57. Junior Katie Davis was 43rd in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:05.68 and fellow junior Ariel Weech led the way in the 50-yard freestyle at 23.47 seconds.
The Huskers continued to place higher with their relays by finishing 10th in the 200-yard freestyle relay following disqualifications by Penn State and Michigan State.
In the diving part of the championships NU's Payton Michaud secured a spot in the finals of the one-meter by finishing 14th with a score of 271.65. Teammates Alyson Ramsey and Kaitlan Walker came off their victory in the synchronized three-meter Wednesday night to each finish in the top 30. Junior Amy Herman finished out the Husker's diving squad by finishing 31st with a score of 243.10. The results of the one-meter diving finals were not available as the diving finals were still continuing Thursday night.
Wisconsin continued its winning streak by winning the 200-yard freestyle relay at 1:28.46, setting a Big Ten meet and conference record. Wisconsin senior Rebecca Thompson went all out in her final Big Ten Championships by winning the 50-yard freestyle. In doing so, Thompson set another Big Ten meet and conference record for the Badgers.
After the second session of the Big Ten Championships, Minnesota was in the lead with a score of 235. The Huskers were in 11th place with a score of 41 and were ahead of Michigan State.
The inaugural Big Ten Championships for Nebraska women's swimming and diving team concludes this weekend with competition continuing for the Huskers on both Friday and Saturday.
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