By Carter Melrose
The Big Ten Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships in West Lafayette, Indiana, have now come and gone. The four days of swimming saw a few Iowa school records and many A-final appearances.
Senior Emma Sougstad again raced against Olympic gold medalist Lilly King in all three of her events — the 100 breaststroke, 200 breast, and 200 individual medley. Again, King brought home the win in all three.
In the 200 individual medley, King finished more than two seconds ahead of Sougstad.
On Feb. 18, Sougstad got seventh place in the 200 breast. The event many anticipated was her best ended up being her lowest finishing spot of the week, though her preliminary time of 2:10.62 broke a school record.
Sougstad’s one bright spot of the week was getting fourth in the 200 individual medley when her previous times had her being a fifth place finisher. The time was fast enough to contend at an NCAA “B” qualifier.
On Feb. 15, the 200-medley relay team broke the first school record of the tournament. The team consisted of junior Meghan Lavelle, Sougstad, junior Mekenna Scheitlin, and freshman Hannah Burvill.
On Day 2, the same women continued their rewriting of the Iowa record books, this time in the 400-medley relay.
Day 4, the last day of Big Tens, was arguably the most exciting, with two school records broken (Sougstad’s 200 breast was one).
The first record broken was in the 400-freestyle relay consisting of Burvill, Sougstad, freshman Allyssa Fluit, and senior Serena Wanasek. The team, however, finished ninth among the field.
With platform diving being the last event of the weekend, senior Calli Head had a long time to wait for her spotlight.
“The prelim is really stressful event; you need to get vertical, there are a lot of good divers in that event,” Head said.
After getting eighth in her preliminary dives and moving onto the A-finals, Head grabbed seventh place with some good diving and a score of 292.20.
At the end of the meet the Hawkeyes placed 11th, scoring 357 points.
Michigan notched the Big Ten title with 1,287 points.
Next up, the men’s team will compete in the Big Ten Championships Wednesday through Saturday in Columbus, Ohio.
