Ten years ago, the Michigan women's swimming team won its first-ever Big Ten title, beginning their climb to become one of the nation's elite teams.
And they haven't lost since.
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diving championships |
But this year the title will be one of the most difficult to win in a long time. The Big Ten has emerged as a much-improved conference, with two teams in the top ten and six in the top 25.
"The nature of the meet has changed entirely this year because of the improvement of several teams," Michigan coach Jim Richardson said. "The meet is certainly not going to have the gap between first and second that it had last year. You have three teams this year, in Michigan, Northwestern and Minnesota, that have good depth, and have good people up front."
No. 10 Minnesota is bringing a solid team to the meet this year. The Golden Gophers are led by breaststroker Gretchen Hegener, butterfly swimmer Tanya Schuh, and distance swimmers Olga Splichalova and Kim Wilson.
Northwestern, probably the most improved team in the conference, has one of their best teams to ever compete in the Big Ten championship meet. The No. 15 Wildcats will be counting on freestyler/backstroker Dominique Diezi, breaststroker Amy Balcerzak, distance swimmer Joy Stover and butterfly/individual medley swimmer Cathy Lundin.
Northwestern has an added psychological edge in this meet, as they are the only school to beat the Wolverines in a Big Ten dual meet since the 1992-93 season. Two weeks ago, the Wildcats upset Michigan, 157-143.
Due to a limit of three individual events per swimmer, the Wolverines will find themselves shorthanded in several events - particularly the 500-yard freestyle, the 100 butterfly and possibly the 100 breaststroke.
"Those will be key events for us to try (and) get some points," Richardson said.
The Wolverines will look to make up some ground in their strong events. They will need strong performances in the 200 and 400 IM, the 50, 100, and 200 freestyles, and the 200 backstroke.
Another problem for the Wolverines is the fact that eight of their swimmers will not be swimming at full strength. With the NCAA championship meet still a month away, the eight Wolverines who have already qualified for this meet are focusing on the NCAAs as opposed to the Big Ten's. This means that Michigan's best swimmers will not be 100 percent.
"In it's own way, (the Big Tens) are every bit as important as NCAAs," Richardson said. "It sounds kind of funny to say that when we have eight people in the meet who won't be at their peak, but that has a lot to do with the nature of this sport."
The ranked teams competing in the meet other than Michigan, Minnesota and Northwestern are No. 21 Illinois, No. 22 Wisconsin and No. 25 Penn State.
"One of our goals every year is to be competitive at the Big Ten championship and to try to swim as fast as we can," Richardson said. "We certainly don't come here to try to finish second or third."