NU swimming and diving team falls short after first day of Big Ten Championships

The Nebraska women's swimming and diving team started their entrance into the unfamiliar territory of their first Big Ten Championships with people that they could rely on — their teammates.

Wednesday night marked the kickoff of the Women's Big Ten Swimming and Diving Championships at the University of Iowa Aquatic Center. With the first two events being the 200-yard medley relay and 800-yard freestyle relay, the Huskers got to race in cooperation with the people they have spent their season training with.  

While in most of the individual events swimmers may have a chance to race an event twice, this was not the case for the relays. Other than the 1,650-yard freestyle, all swimmers who made the top 24 in their respective individual events got the opportunity to race again in the finals later that evening. For all of the relay events, however, there is only one timed final.

For the Huskers, this meant they only got one shot to show their presence in each of the relays.

The competition in the Huskers' first race was especially daunting. Last year's champion, Wisconsin, won the 200-yard medley relay in the Big Ten Championships with a time of 1:36.68 and went on to place second in the NCAA Championships — right behind overall team national champion University of California, Berkeley.

Despite the difficult task ahead of them, Nebraska relied on a strong lineup of critical veteran swimmers including sophomore Shannon Guy and juniors Hayley Martin and Ariel Weech. Freshman Rebekah Land got her first chance to race by leading off with the backstroke leg of the relay.

While the Huskers had the slowest time of the 12 teams with 1:43.26, they ended up finishing 11th following the disqualification of Michigan's relay team.

"We probably wish we could have gotten off to a better start," NU coach Pablo Morales said. "We rushed our strokes a bit and need to swim more to our abilities."

In the 800-yard freestyle relay, the Huskers started to find their rhythm and placed 11th, ahead of Michigan State. The relay of Martin, sophomore Bailey Pons, senior Caroline Shea and freshman Kelly Dunn combined for a total time of 7:22.76. This was just more than 13 seconds faster than the Huskers' time at the Big 12 Championships last year. Pons, a distance swimmer, led the way with the fastest split at 1:49.38.

"We had a decent result (in the 800-yard freestyle relay)," Morales said. "However we were really, really wanting to do well."

After winning the 800-yard freestyle relay last year at their home pool, Indiana repeated with a time of 7:00.82. Just like the Badgers, the Hoosiers went on to give strong showing at the NCAA Championships. Indiana ended up placing seventh overall in the relay last year.

Although Nebraska's diving team was not able to score any points for the Huskers, they continued to show their strength. On Wednesday night the three-meter synchronized diving competition was held for exhibition. The event is currently not a part of the Big Ten Championships, but officials are looking to possibly add it in the future. Juniors Alyson Ramsey and Kaitlan Walker combined to win the event.

The Huskers continue to battle against some of the country's premier competition as they continue on with the Big Ten Championships today.

"We are ready to come back and do better tomorrow," Morales said.

The morning session begins at 11 a.m. with the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard individual medley and 50-yard freestyle. One-meter diving kicks off at 1 p.m. and finals for all of the morning events plus the 200-yard freestyle relay start at 6:30 p.m. The Big Ten Championships continue through Saturday.

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