Most of the time, third place is rather unconvincing. But this past weekend, Michigan women’s swimming and diving team showed that third place is just a small starting block in its race for a successful season in the water.
Michigan captured that spot in a field of 10 teams at the Nike Cup in Chapel Hill, N.C. Many Wolverines accomplished career-best performances and the team admits how far it has come from last season.
“We didn’t have these types of results last year,” coach Jim Richardson said. “I think any time you can swim faster than you’ve ever swam in your life, that is exceptional.”
Many strong swimmers completed record times that were faster than last year’s NCAA Championships qualification standards. This already puts a number of swimmers in consideration for this year’s championships, including Amy McCullough, who is guaranteed a trip to Auburn, Ala. with a 1:46.89 time in the 200-yard freestyle. Other season-best performances were recorded by Erin Abbey in the 100-yard backstroke (55.17), Kelli Stein in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:02.26) and Anne Weilbacher in the 100-yard butterfly (54.20).
In addition, the Wolverines broke a Nike Cup record in the 400-yard medley relay. Again it was McCullough, Abbey, Stein and Weilbacher shattering the record by more than four seconds.
While these team leaders were completing career-best times, the Wolverines admit that they are still far from their peak this early in the season.
“We have a few relays that are excellent,” Richardson said. “However, we need to get the other relays going at high levels in order to be in contention down the road. We have people swimming faster they have ever been in their lives, but our number one priority is to have the whole team accomplish great performances. We are swimming good, but we want to be better than good.”
An important part of this success from the bottom up starts with the freshmen, and the Nike Cup showed that Michigan’s young swimmers are ready to handle that task. Freshman Abby Seskevics helped the 200-yard freestyle relay team to a second-place finish. She was also utilized as an anchor leg in the 400-yard medley relay, a position usually given to upperclassmen.
“As the meet went on, you could see Seskevics’ deep determination,” Richardson said. “She has the courage to do what we need.”
While a few swimmers will be competing in the U.S. Open on December 5-7, the next meet for the team will be the Rainbow Invitational in Honolulu, Hawaii on Jan. 2. From now on, the team’s training regimen will become more strenuous as the swimmers will be focused on progression in hopes of their ultimate goal: “We want to swim scary fast and rip the lid off the competition this year,” Richardson said.