Anyone who has ever tasted a sweet morsel of success knows how delectable it is. Likewise, anyone who has tasted this success knows that the thrill of victory is so enthralling that no person could ever get enough of it. But for the man who has coached the Michigan women’s swimming and diving team to 14 Big Ten titles, Jim Richardson doesn’t seem too confident about making it 15 this weekend in Bloomington.
The Wolverines look to reclaim their title as the best team in the Big Ten by fending off notable conference contenders such as No. 8 Wisconsin, No. 14 Penn State and No. 18 Indiana. The tournament will begin this evening and continue through Saturday. It will welcome a total of seven top-25 teams, including Michigan.
The Wolverines (3-1 Big Ten, 4-2 overall) had their impeccable streak of 12 consecutive wins in Big Ten dual-meets squashed this season. No. 17 Michigan dropped a heartbreaker to Northwestern on Jan. 22, and that loss seems to have foreshadowed the team’s fate in the annual Big Ten Championships.
“I don’t have any real expectations,” Richardson said. “I’ve seen the numbers, they’re pretty evident. Penn State, Wisconsin and Indiana all return more points than we do. So we’re looking at fourth, and we’re going to try real hard to be better than that.”
For the entire team, its focus will not be entirely on coming in first collectively, but more on an individual level. The Wolverines have been coached all season long with the hopes of putting on their best performances at the Big Ten Championships.
“We just want to try to swim faster than we have all year,” Richardson said. “We want to peak then and swim very fast. If we do that, then we can look ourselves in the mirror knowing we worked hard this season, — we trained well, and we raced well.”
Defending its Big Ten championship is a daunting task considering Michigan has welcomed 14 new swimmers to the roster this season.
“We’ve got a lot of new girls,” senior Amy McCullough said. “It’s going to be interesting to see how the team steps up at the end and how we come together.”
Entering the championships, it looks as though the Wolverines will face their most formidable challenge of the year. Michigan holds the conference’s fastest time in just one race, the 50-yard freestyle, held by sophomore Kaitlyn Brady. Brady also brings the second and third fastest times in the Big Ten for the 100-yard butterfly and the 200-yard backstroke, respectively.
Sophomore Susan Gilliam is poised to embark on an intense head-to-head matchup in three different races against Wisconsin senior Carly Piper. The experienced Piper has Gilliam bested in all the long distance freestyle events, as Gilliam’s times fall short of first place in the 200-, 500- and 1,650-yard freestyles. Gilliam has quite the task in front of her. Her best times fall nearly three seconds behind Piper in the 500-yard race and more than 10 seconds behind in the 1,650-yard race.
The Wolverines are also hopeful that some of their newest athletes can score some points during the meet. Freshman Justine Mueller holds third-place times in both of the individual medleys. Mueller will try to overcome powerful Wisconsin junior Anna Trinidad, who has the fastest time in the Big Ten in both the 200- and 400-yard individual medleys.
The veteran McCullough will look to defend her 2004 Big Ten Title in the 100-yard freestyle during her final meet as a Michigan swimmer. McCullough, who has been plagued by illness all season, is just beginning to return to her peak condition. She holds the 36th best time in the Big Ten for the 100-yard race this season, still more than three seconds behind her winning time from last year’s championship.
“We’re trying to focus on Big Tens,” McCullough said. “We put all of our money into Big Tens, and we’re hoping that that pays off in the end and that we’ll be able to swim a lot faster then. It’ll be interesting to see how all the teams sort out at the end. It’s going to be a good hard-fought battle regardless of how well it goes.”