Both the Iowa men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams were massive underdogs as they faced off against top Big Ten competition this weekend.

They couldn’t change that narrative, however. The women’s team fell to No. 6 Michigan by a final of 173-127 Nov. 1 in Iowa City. The men took a pair of losses, 218-82 to the No. 1 Wolverines and 245-55 to No. 7 Indiana, in Bloomington on Nov. 2.

In the men’s meet, Iowa’s bright spot came in the diving events as Mohamed Neuman scored Iowa’s only first-place finish of the day with a score of 329.20 in the 1-meter competition. Fellow diver Anton Hoherz placed fourth in the 3-meter contest, scoring a 347.10.

The Hawkeyes placed third in the last event of the meet behind a time of 2:59.81 in the 400-free relay from the team of Aleksey Tarasenko, Steve Fiolic, Will Scott, and Joe Myhre.

Tarasenko also grabbed a pair of fourth-place finishes with times of 44.63 and 1:37.92 in the 100 and 200-free.

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The women’s team showed noticeable improvement from last year’s 255-97 drubbing against the Wolverines, as this season’s dual meet was much more competitive.

Iowa began the meet taking the second and third spots on the leaderboard in the 2000-medley relay, and later senior Hannah Burvill and sophomore Lauren McDougall took the two top spots in the 200-free in 1:49.53 and 1.49.93, respectively.

“[Going 1-2 in the 200-free] was definitely a great moment for us,” Burvill said. “I think that’s what we wanted to go for. I think that was very important just to kind of like say, ‘We’re here, we can do this.’”

Burvill also scored a second-place time of 23.47 in the 50-free, only .003 behind the first-place finisher. She finished second in the 100-free 50.58, as well.

“Individually, I was very happy,” Burvill said. “I was happy to basically solidify [the performance against Minnesota]. As a team, I think we’re getting stronger. I think we’re all kind of getting into the racing mode and getting used to stepping up and competing when it matters most.”

Freshman Millie Sansome added two individual wins in the 100 and 200-back in 55.57 and 2:00.03, respectively.

The Hawkeyes excelled in both breaststroke races Friday as Hawkeyes took home the second, third, and fourth positions in the 100-breast. Aleksandra Olesiak finished second in the 200-breast and set a new career-best for that race in the process. She finished in 2:17.69, .07 seconds quicker than her previous best at Iowa.

Kelsey Drake scored two victories in the 200-fly (1:59.45) and the 200-IM (2:03.59), and a second-place finish in the 100-fly (54.36).

The Hawkeyes also impressed in the diving portion as Jayah Mathews and Sam Tamborski took top honors in the 1 and 3-meter events, respectively.

“They really competed well,” head coach Marc Long said following the women’s meet. “We don’t want these moral victories, but we knew we had a few holes against them, and we had to take some lumps in certain spots. But again, just really proud of how they competed both in the water and on the boards.”

Up next for the women, the Rutgers Scarlett Knights come to town for a showdown at 2 p.m. Friday at the CRWC. The. men’s team won’t swim competitively again until both of Iowa’s squads compete in Minneapolis at the mid-season Minnesota Invitational Dec. 4-7.