Over this past weekend, NMU’s Swimming and Diving teams held their annual Green vs. Gold scrimmage where they not only raced, but also recognized swimming and diving alumni, including Dave Bradshaw, 2016 Hall of Fame Inductee.

This was the 40th anniversary of Northern having a women’s swim team, so there were many coaches and alumni from previous years.

“The really cool thing is [that] the women’s program has had three women head coaches, and the first woman coach was there, Joan Hopkins, and she coached for nine years. Then the woman that took over for her, Anne Goodman James, was here for ten years, and this is my eighth season,” said head coach Heidi Voigt. “So between the three of us [who were all at the meet], we’ve coached almost 30 years out of the 40 of the women’s swimming, so that was really fun to talk to those women and see what they did then and what we’re doing now; we had some great stories and good laughs.”

Another highlight of the meet was that during the 100 yard backstroke, Rachel Helm set a pool record with a time of 55.79. Helm also came in first for the Green team in the 100 yard breaststroke with a time of 1:04.77.

As for the overall results, the Green team won by a margin of 44 points; the Green team had a total of 237.5 points as opposed to the Gold team’s 193.5 points. The women on the Green team racked up 28 points more than the Gold team, and the other 16 points were racked up by the men on the Green team.

“I think it’s really cool because Heidi always makes up the meet, and the way the teams are [organized], it always comes down to the last couple events,” said junior Taylor Susa, who was on the Green team for this event. Susa also commented about the dynamic of the team and how she enjoyed seeing how well everyone connected in the pool. She added that she is looking forward to the season.

“Every year, we keep getting better and better, so it’s really cool to see that as the years have gone on,” Susa said.

Commenting on the upcoming season, Voigt also mentioned that compared to last year at this event there were several events that were faster.

“ [It’s] a really good sign moving forward, especially getting ready for Findlay that’s coming October 13th and 14th,” she said. “Everybody raced hard, and they looked great. Our divers dove some hard dives this weekend, and this early in the season, that’s really promising.”