After a tough weekend of conference competition, the University of Wisconsin proved why it is one of the top swimming and diving teams in the country, sweeping the competition at the Big Ten Quad Meet in Minneapolis, Minn.

Wisconsin won all three of its dual meets, placing in all eight events and winning four.

For Illinois, season-best times in both individual races and relays brightened an otherwise disappointing meet, as the team failed to take a victory against No. 9 Wisconsin, No. 14 Purdue or Minnesota.

“We were a little flat, but at this time of the year when you’re starting to rest you know you’re going to be,” Illinois head coach Sue Novitsky said. “That meet you always go in and are never quite sure how they were going to be. We were a little flat, but we’re just going to keep doing what we’ve been doing and getting ready for Big Tens.”

One of Illinois’ biggest improvements of the weekend was in putting everything together for two relays. The 200 free relay, consisting of junior Barbie Viney, junior Rebecca Poetz, senior Christina Brunka and junior Meghan Farrell, touched the wall in second place with a season-best time of 1:34.35. The 400 free relay of Farrell, Poetz, Brunka and Viney also recorded a season record time, taking fourth place by finishing in 3:27.86.

“That was nice to see because we’ve sort of been stuck around this one time, especially with the 200 free relay,” Novitsky said. “We dropped 1.2 seconds in that, so finally we put that together.”

Brunka finished the 100 fly in a season-best 57.11, which was good enough to earn her third place.

While the juniors and seniors came up with Illinois’ best times, the freshmen also contributed to the weekend while showing improvement over the beginning of the season. Freshman Marissa Clapp raced 2:19.38 in the 200 breast, taking fifth place in that event.

On the diving boards, Illinois freshman Marina Mendoza finished 10th on the 1-meter and junior Jackie Bain took 12th overall. Bain took 9th in the 3-meter competition, while Mendoza followed in 10th.

The Illini have two weeks to taper, rest and rebuild their strength before the Big Ten Championships begin on Feb. 15 in Columbus, Ohio. Novitsky said the team will take that time to tweak their performances, keep their intensity up, but stay rested enough to compete with the conference.

“One of the biggest things they’re still working on is trusting themselves and their ability to step up and swim against a ranked team,” Novitsky said. “I thought we did a much better job the second day of it than we did the first day.”