The NMU swim and dive team hosted the Wayne State Warriors on Saturday, Nov. 4, beating them with a 75-point lead to make the score 335.5-260.5 overall. The women scored 171.5 points and the men scored 164 points, both out-scoring Wayne State. 

With the big win over Wayne State, both the women’s and men’s teams are nationally ranked with the NMU women’s swim and dive ranked No. 7 and the men’s swim and dive ranked No. 14 across Division II. The Wayne State women are ranked No. 17, and the men are not ranked nationally. 

“It was a great weekend and nice to be back in our home pool,” Head Coach Heidi Voigt said. “We’re really excited about this weekend’s results. Great performances, we broke a couple of pool records.” 

NMU women’s group A for the 200-yard medley relay broke the pool record with a time of 1:43.64. The group was entered as an exhibition, meaning their scores did not count for the meet times. The other women’s 200-yard medley relay came in first place, timing out at 1:50.67.

The women racing on the relay team were sophomore Olivia Haerr, freshman Hermione Roe, freshman Carlotta Santi and junior Mia Strazny. Following the weekend meet, sophomore Tobie Stiles and Alyssa Bloser earned GLIAC Swimmer of the Week honors. 

“Tobie just keeps rolling … on that diving and broke his own school record on one meter so that was cool too,” Voigt said.

On the dive side, junior Abbie Harned placed second with her three-meter dive scoring 387.29 points and scoring 427.28 points in the one-meter dive. Two other women’s divers finished in fourth and fifth place for the Wildcats in the three-meter dive, Lauren Plockmeyer and Kalina Ceglinski, with scores of 212.48 and 212.17.  On the men’s side, Stiles broke his own diving record in the one-meter dive, scoring 477.84 points.

“We [are] really excited about the women’s diving squad,” Voigt said. “This weekend we had three women get cuts and they have to get two different cuts in two different meets.” 

The women’s 200-yard freestyle relay placed first, tying Wayne State with a time of 1:38.71 and the men’s 200-yard freestyle relay also placed first with a time of 1:25.04. 

With a great win behind the ‘Cats, they are moving to train for the next meet in a couple of weeks as they will head to Grand Rapids to compete in the Calvin College Invite taking place from Thursday, Nov. 30 through Saturday, Dec. 2. 

“I think it works out really well for us and they always do well there,” Voigt said. “It’s a fast pool.”