In its only home meet of the season, the Northern Michigan University swimming and diving team scored a come-from-behind victory on Saturday, Nov. 17 over visiting Hillsdale 116-110.
“I was really excited with how the team did,” freshman Kelli Vander Baan said. “It was a close meet so when I heard we won by six points I knew everyone swam real hard.”
Heading into the final event, the 200-yard freestyle relay, the Wildcats were down by just one point. With a time of 1:44.6, the NMU relay team of Emily Olsen, Sarah Van Oss, KT Sweeney and Mimi Marschall won the event by only two seconds. The points scored by the relay team gave the Wildcats the necessary points to take home the win.
NMU won five other events in the meet. Sophomore Sarah Cempel won the 1,650-yard freestyle (19:40), while senior Sarah Dobratz won the 200-yard backstroke (2:16.73). Marschall, Van Oss, and junior Courtney Lowry took the top three spots in the 400-yard IM.
A big scoring boost came from the NMU performance in the two diving events, where Kara and Kelli Vander Baan scored 26 points for Northern. Hillsdale did not have any divers competing in the meet.
Other scoring Wildcats were Lindsey Kuehn, Kate Willems, Lindsey VandenBroeck, Nicole Kaszuba and the 200-yard medley relay team of Kaszuba, Lowry, Dobratz and Willems.
After an off week, the team will head to Ypsilanti, Mich. for the Eastern Michigan Invite on Friday, Nov. 30.
