The accolades stacked to 16 top-five finishes and several lifetime best times in Minnesota this weekend for the Illinois swimming and diving team.
The Illini swimmers swept the top-three spots in the 200 back with sophomore Callan McDermott placing first (2 minutes, 4.54 seconds) just ahead of sophomores Alexa Chavez in second (2:04.83) and Katie Roeing in third (2:07.71). Each of them clocked personal-bests.
“They really competed tough and kept competitive energy going throughout the entire meet,” head coach Sue Novitsky said.
Joining the top-five finishes were also sophomore Andrea DeAngelis, who took second in the 200 breast (2:26.13), and junior Emma Williams, who claimed a fourth-place victory in the 200 fly (2:07.83).
“I think we all worked super hard this year,” Williams said. “So it was great to see it all pay off at the end.”
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The swan song has been sung for all Illinois swimmers who competed this weekend, but not every Illini competitor was strapped in for a finale.
Down on the boards, senior Darragh McDermott led a sweep of the top four spots in the one-meter, followed by sophomore Erika Murphy, senior Keri Eberhardt and sophomore Emily Fung, respectively.
“I think this meet really helped us prepare for Big Tens because there were about 32 divers in it, and with more divers, there’s more time between the rounds,” Eberhardt said. “So, it gives us the chance to get ready for that big wait between rounds at Big Tens.”
Novitsky said her team’s ability to step up this weekend and achieve some personal-best times was a good indication that the program is on the right track and will continue to her practice plans and stress the need for making details automatic.
Even when races weren’t won, Novitsky saw improvement in the attitude of her swimmers from the season’s start.
“You’d like to see perfection, but that’s probably not going to happen,” Novitsky said. “When they didn’t have a race that went the way they wanted it to go, they just go back to work and get themselves ready to go for their next race.”
The Big Ten Championships are in less than two weeks and all that remains of the 2012-13 season. But swimmers who won’t get their shot in it this year are keeping optimistic.
“I think a lot of our goals are to be on that Big Ten team (next year),” Williams said. “Just to work as hard as we did this year and show it on the big stage at Big Tens.”
J.J. can be reached at [email protected].
