It’s officially invite season.
This past weekend, Northwestern swimming and diving competed at midseason invites. While the swimming team raced at the Wolfpack Invite in Greensboro, North Carolina, the diving squad was in Columbus for the Ohio State Invitational.
The Wildcat women were fifth out of eight teams with 1017.5 points at the Wolfpack Invite, while the men were sixth with 771 points. On the diving side, the men were seventh out of eight teams with 237.5 points while the women finished tenth out of ten teams with 114 points. The low place finishes at the Ohio State Invite can be explained by the fact that Northwestern’s competitors fielded swimmers alongside their divers.
Women’s Recap
On the women’s side, top swimming performers included freshman Sophie Martin (70 points), graduate student Nikki Venema (69 points) and first-year Zoe Nordmann (67 points). Each swimmer had a fourth-place finish, the highest individual finish out of any Northwestern female swimmer at the Wolfpack Invite.
Martin finished fourth in the 200-yard individual medley (1:58.84), sixth in the 200 breaststroke (2:13.67) and ninth in the 100 breast (1:00.63). She also raced on Northwestern’s 400 freestyle and medley relays. In the 200 IM, her time was a personal best, improving upon her best time of 1:59.92 headed into this meet.
Venema swam her typical sprint races, taking ninth in the 50 free (22.40), fifth in the 100 free (49.00) and fourth in the 100 butterfly (53.07) — setting season-bests in the latter two events. Meanwhile, Nordmann was ninth in the 200 free (1:47.32), fifth in the 500 free (4:45.53) and eighth in the 200 fly (2:01.38). In the 200 free, she dropped from her previous best of 1:47.54 set in February.
Northwestern also finished sixth in the 200 free relay, fifth in the 400 free relay, fifth in the 800 free relay, seventh in the 200 medley relay and eighth in the 400 medley relay.
Among the divers, first-year Isabella Chen was the top performer, scoring 60 points. She placed tenth in the one-meter diving finals (274.64), 10th in the 10-meter (237.15) and 18th in the three-meter (253.00).
Men’s Recap
For the men, it was sophomore Diego Nosack (67 points), sophomore Stuart Seymour (63 points), senior Tyler Lu (61) and junior Tonahuc Zinn (53.5 points) who were standouts at the Wolfpack Invite.
Nosack placed eighth in the 200 fly (1:45.33), 10th in the 200 IM (1:45.59) and fourth in the 400 IM (3:45.11), setting season-best times in all three events. His fourth-place finish in the 400 IM was the highest any NU male placed at this meet. Seymour was 18th in the 50 free (19.56), 16th in the 100 free (43.79), fifth in the 100 back (46.43) and ninth in the 100 fly (46.72). He clocked season-bests in the 100 fly and 100 free and went best times in the 50 free and 100 back. Both of his previous bests in the latter two events were from the 2023-24 season.
Lu, who typically swims backstroke, had a breakthrough meet in the breaststroke events. He finished sixth in the 100 breast (52.99) and 10th in the 200 breast (1:56.91), setting best times in both races. In the 100 breast he broke 53 seconds for the first time, and in the 200 breast he dropped from his best time of 1:59.05 set back in 2020. Lu also placed ninth in the 200 IM (1:45.30). Zinn was 15th in the 100 breast (54.94), 21st in the 100 fly (47.93), seventh in the 200 fly (1:45.14) and 12th in the 200 IM (1:46.50). In the preliminary heats of the 100 fly, he went a best time of 47.84.
On relays, Northwestern was fourth in the 800 free relay, sixth in the 400 free relay, eighth in the 400 medley relay, ninth in the 200 medley relay and 11th in the 200 free relay.
First-year Kyle Ly and sophomore Adam Cohen were the top divers for Northwestern in Columbus, scoring 75 and 71.5 points respectively. Ly was eighth in the one-meter (307.10), seventh in the 10-meter (314.00) and ninth in the three-meter (305.20). Meanwhile, Cohen was 13th in the one-meter (292.00), 11th in the 10-meter (303.20) and third in the three-meter (341.25).
What’s Next?
The Wildcats return to Greensboro after Thanksgiving to compete at the Toyota US Open Championships, which run from Dec. 4 to Dec. 7.