Iowa swim/dive squads to open season against Michigan State
The Hawkeyes return to the pool this weekend in their first competition of the season.
Iowa swimmer Allyssa Fluit swims the 200 freestyle during a swim meet against the University of Northern Iowa and Western Illinois University on Friday, Feb. 1, 2019.
October 2, 2019
Both the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams will start their schedules at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 3 against Michigan State at home.
Last seaon, Iowa traveledto East Lansing and beat Michigan State in both the men’s and women’s contests, the men winning 193-98 and the women tallying a 160-138 victory.
The men’s team won a whopping 15 of the 16 events in that meet, highlighted by then-freshmen Mateusz Arndt and Anze Fers Erzen earning a combined five first-place finishes.
Arndt won both the 1,000-meter free with a time of 9:24.75 to finish over ten seconds before the second-place finisher and the 500 free with a time of 4:32.88. Fers Erzen captured three individual titles in the 100-back, 200-back, and the 200-individual medley with respective times of 50.86, 1:49.28, and 1:53.00.
The women were victorious in 13 events against the Spartans after impressive performances by Allyssa Fluit, Hannah Burvill, and Kelsey Drake, each winning three individual events.
Fluit won the 200-free, 100-free, and 500-free races in 1:52.19, 52.48, and 5:07.27, Burvill finished first in the 1,000-free (10:39.63), 100-back (57.06), and the 200-back (203.76) Drake secured wins in the 200-butterfly (2:02.13), 100-butterfly (54.73), and the 200-individual medley contest (2:06.48).
All three swimmers also contributed to relay wins for the Hawkeyes, with Burvill and Fluit as part of the 400-free team that posted a time of 3:31.34 and Drake as part of the winning 200-medley group that finished in 1:45.13.
Iowa and Michigan State have faced off in the first dual meet of the Hawkeyes’ season for the last three years, and both the Iowa men’s and women’s teams have won each of those meets. Both Hawkeye squads have also won the last eight meetings with the Spartans overall.
Iowa’s men’s team finished 2018 with a 6-2 dual meet record and finished in eighth place at the Big Ten Championships, while the women finished at 6-6 and in tenth place in the conference meet.
Last year, the men’s team also had two third-place finishes at the Shamrock Invitational in South Bend and the Hawkeye Invitational. The women’s team finished fourth and third in those meets, respectively. The women also added another fourth-place finish at the SMU Classic in Dallas last season.
The men’s team returns 21 athletes from last year’s roster, and the women have 17 returners this season.
After tonight’s matchup, Michigan State will battle with Iowa again on Oct. 4 in both men’s and women’s competition. Northern Iowa will also get in on the action, with its women’s team joining the competition at the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center.
The men’s and women’s teams will split up for competition after that. The women will head to the SMU Classic on Oct. 11, while the men are off until they face Minnesota at home on Oct. 26.
