Hoosiers succumb to No. 9 Tennessee

With the regular season almost complete, the IU women’s swimming and diving team is beginning to peak at the right time.\nAnd even though the team showed more progress Friday against No. 9 Tennessee, it wasn’t quite enough to defeat the Volunteers. Tennessee (5-1) used a late string of first-place finishes to pull out a 172-128 victory.\n“Our women did a great job,” IU coach Ray Looze said. “For much of the meet we went toe-to-toe with the (No. 9) team in the country. We just came up short in a couple races at the end. I’m really pleased with our performance.”\nThe Hoosiers (1-5) started the meet strong, looking just like the team from last week that upset then-No. 13 Michigan en route to the Notre Dame Invitational title. After the first five events, IU led 49-44. \nSophomore diver Brittney Feldman began the day with a win in the 1-meter springboard, scoring 309.23 points. The 200-yard medley relay team of sophomore swimmer Kate Zubkova, junior swimmer Sarah Stockwell, sophomore swimmer Donna Smailis and sophomore swimmer Presley Bard won the second event and improved on their NCAA B cut time, with a season-best 1:42.09.\nZubkova dominated the 100-yard backstroke, winning by four seconds over the Tennessee runner-up. Stockwell matched her season-best NCAA B cut time with a 1:03.57 in the 100-yard breaststroke to win the event.\nThe Volunteers began to make up for the Hoosiers’ strong start, but it wasn’t until the eighth event out of 16 that the home team took the lead for good. Michele King’s victory for Tennessee in the 50-yard freestyle opened a run that would include first place finishes in seven of the last eight races. \nZubkova recorded the Hoosiers’ lone first-place finish in the second half of the meet. She won the 200-yard backstroke in 1:58.40, and for the second consecutive week swept the backstroke races.\n“We just got beat by a better team today,” Looze said. “I’m confident we’ll eventually be able to get our hands on the wall first and win in the future. We’re getting the most out of our performances.”\nWhile the loss does nothing to improve IU’s record, many swimmers and divers had their best performances of the season. Smailis recorded a season-best 51.70 in the 100-yard freestyle to finish second. Stockwell also had a season best in the 200-yard breaststroke, with an NCAA provisional mark of 2:17.26. Junior swimmer Allison Kay posted a 4:53.06 in the 500-yard freestyle, her fastest time of the season.\nJunior swimmer Abby Cooper, who placed fourth in the 200-yard breaststroke, said the team is building confidence into the season’s defining meets – including next week’s regular season finale at Purdue and the Big Ten championships in February.\n“I thought it was a really good meet,” she said. “We came off a good weekend last week. A lot of us swam well that weekend. That gave us a little confidence and we swam well again this week. We’ve improved so much from our last meet in December.”\nFeldman, the 1-meter springboard winner, credits winter training for IU’s improvement this semester.\n“We came off of really rigorous winter training in Puerto Rico,” she said. “We had some pretty intense practices. And now we’re getting right where we need to be for the championship season.”