The Illinois swimming and diving team improved to 1-1 last Friday, touching out Michigan State by 28 hundredths of a second in the final event for a record-setting victory of 153-147.

Both the Illini and the Spartans fought for control in the meet, keeping the score on a constant shift. While swimmers such as juniors Courtney Pope and Erica Lynn emerged with two individual event victories each, the Spartans took the gold in both diving events as well as a crucial one-two finish in the 1,000 free.

“(Michigan State) had some very good freestyle sprinters and some good speed, and we had to counter that and find those events where we could just sort of come back and punch it out with them a little bit,” head coach Sue Novitsky said.

With a tight score heading into the final event, all the pressure was put on the relay teams. Whichever team won the race would win the meet.

The Illini A relay team consisted of senior Kim Kalenda leading off, sophomores Alison Meng and Megan Marchuk, and junior Pope in at anchor.

“Sue has put me there since freshman year,” Pope said. “I know it’s going to come down to me at all the meets, and I had no idea who the girl from Michigan State was so I had no idea how fast she was, but I was ready.”

When Pope touched the wall, the pool erupted into excitement. Not only had Illinois won the meet, but it also clocked in a time of 1:35.00, surpassing the former ARC pool record of 1:35.92 set two decades ago by Kansas.

“We all talked about it before the race. We were like, ‘We can do this, we can put this together.’ And we did,” Pope said.

The spotlight may have been drawn on the climactic finish; however, there were other factors that kept the meet close.

On the day, three ARC pool records were broken, one of which was broken by Michigan State’s Jenny Rusch in the 50 free with a time of 23.70. Also resetting the record board, this time in the 100 back with a time of 56.25, was Meng, who had just returned to the lineup after spending some time out.

“To get three pool records off the board, by Michigan State and us, just old records, that’s a great day,” Novitsky said.

Going into this meet, senior diver Keri Eberhardt said that in a close meet, the diving events can definitely have an effect on who wins a meet. Nothing rang truer either as Illini divers brought in significant points that held the meet close.

“Our divers helped us out a lot today going two, three and four on both boards. That was great,” Novitsky said. “Team effort, that’s what (this win) was.”

Illinois does not compete for two weeks, but its next meet will be its first on the road this season at Illinois State. Novitsky said that traveling to and from on the same day always adds a little bit of an element; however, she and the team have plans to prepare.

“I think today we took another good step forward. A lot of our details were a lot sharper than they were last week,” Novitsky said. “(ISU) is one of those meets, again, where they have some good athletes and they always compete hard against us, so we’ll have to be sharp and that’s all it is. We’ve got a couple weeks of pretty hard training coming up. Again, (it’s about) being able to swim fast when you’re tired. That’s what we want to see.”

J.J. can be reached at [email protected] and @TheWilson9287.