Minnesota Swims Past Nebraska in Big Ten Showdown

The Minnesota women’s swimming and diving team made its home debut Friday night and didn’t disappoint with a 189-107 victory over Nebraska at the Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center.

“I’m really pleased,” Minnesota head coach Kelly Kramer said after the Gophers improved to 2-0 on the season. “This was our first chance where we had the entire women’s team involved in competition; I’m just really happy from top to bottom with how we performed today. This is the kind of start to the year that we wanted to have and this is the kind of start that we can build on.”

The Golden Gophers won 10 of the first 11 events on the evening, then swam mostly exhibitions over the final five events. Overall, Minnesota won 13 of the 16 events.

Six different Gophers were multi-event winners led by freshman Hannah Cornish‘s three victories.

Cornish’s night started with victory in the 200 free, posting a personal best time of 1:49.81. She then added another personal best with a time of 50.56 as she won the 100 free. Capping her evening, she led off the team’s first-place finish in the 400 free relay as she, junior Maggie Summit and sophomores Pyper Doo and Megan Van Berkom posted a time of 3:23.78.

Van Berkom, senior Emily Cook and junior Emma Lezer each posted wins as part of relays as well as an individual victory.

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In addition to being part of the 400 free relay, Van Berkom posted an NCAA ‘B’ cut in the 200 fly with a personal best time of 1:57.11.

Cook and Lezer were both part of the 200 medley relay victory along with Summit and senior Emma Linscott, winning in 1:41.79. Cook then claimed her individual win in the 100 back (54.73), while Lezer finished first in the 100 breast (1:02.79).

Also capturing multiple victories was Minnesota junior diver Joy Zhu. After opting out of the 2020-21 season, Zhu won both the 1-meter and 3-meter competitions Friday in her return to action. She won the 1-meter with a mark of 312.45 and the 3-meter with a score of 334.13, both of which were NCAA qualifying marks.

Several Gophers were making their season debuts and four came away with victories.

Senior Abbey Kilgallon blew away the field in the 1000 free, bettering the competition by over 16 seconds with a time of 10:02.34. Meanwhile, junior Grace Bennin won the 200 breast (2:16.17) and fellow junior Rachel Butler finished first in the 200 IM with a time of 2:03.67.

In the closest race of the night, senior Olivia Bloomer beat Summit by the narrowest margin possible as her time of 23.35 beat out Summit’s 23.36.

Minnesota returns to the pool Saturday as the men and women face St. Thomas at noon at the Freeman Aquatic Center.

“Excited for tomorrow, too,” Kremer said. “We’re going to move the lineup around a bit to kind of see some other events.

“We wanted to come out in this meet and still have a chance to see some different things from them tomorrow, and then get our men’s team racing at home and see some things from them too, so really excited about tomorrow’s meet to have the chance to have both teams together, which we haven’t had yet. Should be a lot of fun.”

— The above press release was posted by Swimming World in conjunction with Minnesota Athletics. For press releases and advertising inquiries please contact Advertising@SwimmingWorld.com.

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