RESULTS
EVANSTON, Ill. -- Northwestern saved its best for last Friday during the opening day of its three-day TYR Invitational, ripping a 17-year-old relay pool record off the board to take a commanding lead in the seven-team meet.
NU broke Stanford's 17-year-old Norris Aquatics Center pool record in the 400 medley relay, which was one of two pool records to fall Friday at the traditional fall-season-ending event.
The Wildcats accrued 366 points to lead Michigan State (287), Air Force (173), UIC (108), Saint Louis (95), Truman State (84) and Northern Iowa (36 points with only divers competing) entering Saturday's action.
Day Two of the 2014 TYR Invitational begins with a 9 a.m. preliminary session tomorrow, Saturday, Nov. 22, with the finals sessions starting at 5 p.m. Sunday's last day of competition has prelims at 9 a.m. and finals at 3 p.m.
Friday's Preliminary Session
A trio of Wildcats got the TYR started off right by qualifying for the championship final of the 50 breaststroke event. NU's top 100 breaststroker this season, junior Julianne Kurke (Atlanta, Ga./Parkview), qualified third overall in 29.65 followed by sophomore Katie Branch (Phoenix, Ariz./Horizon Honors) in fifth and backstroke/butterfly specialist Lacey Locke (Carmel, Ind./Carmel) in seventh.
Freshman sprint freestylist Mary Warren (Hartland, Wis./Arrowhead) locked up a scoring spot in the 50 breast `B' final with a Friday morning time of 30.51 to finish 13th overall. Freshman Anna Keane (Edmonds, Wash./Meadowdale) also earned a second swim in the event with an 18th-place 31.53 to make the non-scoring `C' heat.
After seeing Air Force's Genevieve Miller swim an NCAA `B' provisional qualifying standard in the 500 free one heat before her, sophomore Lauren Abruzzo (Denver, Colo./Kent Denver) went out and topped it with one of her own, swimming a `B' time of 4:46.84 to qualify first overall for the championship heat. Abruzzo's time was just .73 of a second off her own pool record set at last year's TYR, setting the stage for another challenge swim Friday night.
After Miller and an Air Force teammate in second and third, the Wildcats deep distance free group comprised the remainder of the `A' field in the 500 free. Junior Emily Launer (DeKalb, Ill./Rosary), freshman Sydney Modeas (East Amherst, N.Y./Clarence), junior Ellen Anderson (Montgomery Village, Md./Gaithersburg), sophomore Ellen Stello (Shorewood, Wis./Shorewood) and sophomore Megan Purdy (Boulder City, Nev./Boulder City) rounded out the field for NU with Purdy grabbing the eighth and final lane in the championship heat by three one-hundredths of a second.
With six Wildcats in the `A' heat, sophomore Melissa Postoll (Acworth, Ga./Kennesaw Mountain) was the lone 'Cat to earn a second swim in the `B' or `C' finals. Postoll qualified 20th overall in 5:04.17 to qualify for the bonus heat.
Locke and Abruzzo led Northwestern in the 200 IM Friday morning by making the championship heat. Locke's 2:02.73 was good for second place overall while Abruzzo's 2:04.14 was third. Both times were season-bests for the Wildcats.
Postoll came back out to pick up a scoring spot in the 200 IM `B' final with a 10th-place and season-best 2:06.57.
Northwestern again dominated the morning qualifying in the 50 free, moving five Wildcats along to the championship final in special fashion. Warren led the way with the first sub 23:00 time of her collegiate career for NU, swimming an NCAA `B' qualifying standard of 22.87 that was just a tenth off of the pool record. Sophomore Annika Winsnes (Singapore/United World College) followed behind Warren with a career-best time of her own, touching in a second-place 23.29.
Julia Pratt (Vincennes, Ind./Vincennes Rivet) in fourth and senior Valerie Nubbe (Huntsville, Ala./Huntsville) and freshman Aja Malone (Acworth, Ga./Allatoona) tying in a dead-heat for sixth rounded out NU's `A' finalists.
Freshman Katherine Senseman (Terre Haute, Ind./Terre Haute South Vigo) moved on to the scoring `B' final with a 23.97 in the morning to place 14th overall while Maddy Sims (Downers Gove, Ill./Downers Grove) and Lacey Smith (Boulder, Colo./Fairview) made the `C' final for the Wildcats. Keane was the second alternate for the 50 free following morning action.
In morning diving action on the 3-meter springboard, freshmen Mashal Hashem (Potomac, Md./Winston Churchill) and Monique Demaisip (Norwalk, Calif./Gahr) earned tickets to the championship final Friday night. Hashem qualified fifth overall with a 233.90 while Demaisip was seventh with a 228.70.
Friday's Finals Session
The evening session kicked off with three timed finals of the 200 free relay. When the thrashing water calmed, Northwestern's team of Warren, Pratt, Nubbe and Winses had touched before the rest for a season-best 1:32.54.
Kurke moved up one spot in the championship final of the 50 breast, touching the wall in 29:39 to finish as the runner-up in the race. Branch and Locke were unable to replicate their morning swims and ended up sixth and seventh, respectively.
In the consolation final, Warren dropped three-quarters of a second from her prelim time to surge to the top and win nine points with a ninth-place overall finish for NU, touching in 29.77. Northwestern also took the top spot in the bonus final of the event courtesy of an Anna Keane 30.79 that also was nearly three-quarters of a second faster than her morning swim.
The 500 free championship final featured six Northwestern swimmers but the real battle was between the top two qualifiers: NU's pool-record holder Abruzzo and Air Force's Miller, both of whom swam NCAA `B' times in the morning qualifiers. Miller came out on a mission in the final and broke Abruzzo's pool mark by 2.15 seconds with a better `B' time of 4:43.96 to win. Abruzzo placed second with a second `B' cut of 4:47.75. She touched in front of a second Air Force entrant in the heat, then Stello, Anderson, Modeas, Launer and Purdy followed in that order for the Wildcats.
Stello dropped over eight seconds from morning to evening to swim a 4:49.31 while Anderson's fifth-place swim of 4:51.90 represented a 4.06 second cut. Postoll scratched the 500 free bonus final to focus on her 200 IM consolation berth.
In that 200 IM, Abruzzo dropped nearly a full second from her prelim time to finish third in 2:03.29 for the Wildcats despite her 500 free duel just moments earlier. Locke touched in 2:03.67 to place fourth overall.
Postoll's rest served her well. The sophomore cut 2.53 seconds from her preliminary race to touch in 2:04.04 and win the consolation final by nearly a full-second cushion.
Warren re-kindled her NCAA `B' cut magic from the morning to swim a 22.93 in the 50 free championship final Friday night, winning the event for the Wildcats. Winsnes took second in 23.47, Malone was fourth and Pratt and Nubbe tied for fifth overall in a strong event for the Wildcats.
In the 50 free consolation final, Senseman took second in the heat and 10th overall with a 23.86 as NU's lone entry. Sims' 24.15 in the bonus final was good for second in that race and 17th overall while Smith ended up 21st following an evening 24.36.
In the 3-meter diving final, Hashem took fifth-place points with a 225.20 while Demaisip ended up sixth overall with 225.20.
The evening closed Friday with the 400 medley relay, which Northwestern led from the start and ran away with in pool-record fashion. Locke grabbed more than a second lead with a 55.36 100 back split and the Wildcats went crazy from there, extending the lead via Kurke and Malone before closing with Winsnes' 49.65 anchor leg to touch in 3:41.95, a time that blew away the 17-year-old pool record of 3:43.10 established by Stanford in 1997.
In a fun quirk, NU's `B' relay of Postoll, Branch, Stello and Warren took second overall with a 3:47.07, but rules of the Invitational state that just one relay per team gets to score.