No. 2/6 Indiana swim and dive traveled to West Lafayette, Indiana, over the weekend for a dual meet against unranked opponent Purdue.
Hoosier men’s swimmers went undefeated Saturday, and each of their 12 wins came from different athletes. Amid the wins, Indiana posted nine NCAA B Cut times.
The highlight of the meet came early on, as Indiana teams posted the top three times in the 200-yard medley relay.
While the second-place squad featured Olympians in senior Rafael Miroslaw and graduate student Tomer Frankel, the top time went to the group with freshman Miroslav Knedla, senior Finn Brooks and graduate students Caspar Corbeau and Gavin Wight. The two teams produced the only NCAA A Cut times on the men’s side.
Among Indiana’s individual victors were both of the McDonald brothers. Freshman Cooper McDonald won the 1000-yard freestyle with an impressive eight-second cushion, while junior Owen McDonald’s B Cut time of 1:33.52 took first in the 200-yard freestyle.
Indiana freshman Raekwon Noel notched a victory in the 200-yard butterfly, and senior Olympian Josh Matheny earned a win in the 200-yard breaststroke.
2024 Olympic gold medalist and Indiana senior Matt King was a half-second faster than Purdue senior Brady Samuels in the 100-yard freestyle, and Miroslaw had almost nine seconds of separation from the field the 500-yard freestyle.
Olympian and Indiana senior Kai Van Westering won the 200-yard backstroke, and graduate student Jassen Yep triumphed in the 200-yard individual medley.
Purdue’s lone victory came in the diving segment of the meet, with senior Jordan Rzepka winning the platform diving event by over 40 points. However, reigning NCAA champion and Indiana senior Olympian Carson Tyler won the 1-meter diving with an NCAA Zone Qualifying Score of 411.45.
On the women’s side, the Hoosier standouts were junior Mya DeWitt and 2024 Olympic silver medalist and senior Anna Peplowski. The two were the only Indiana swimmers to win multiple individual events.
Peplowski dominated the 1000-yard freestyle and narrowly won the 100-yard butterfly, while DeWitt posted two B Cut times on her way to victories in the 50 and 100-yard freestyles.
The Indiana women swept the relays, and the group of juniors Chiok Sze Yeo and Kristina Paegle along with Dewitt and Peplowski posted a blazing 1:28.35 in the 200-yard freestyle relay, marking the lone A Cut for the team.
Hoosier freshman Mary Cespedes held off three Boilermakers to win the 200-yard breaststroke, while sophomore Reese Tiltmann posted the only sub two-minute time in the 200-yard individual medley.
Other Indiana individual winners included Paegle, senior Kacey McKenna, and graduate student Anna Freed. The latter two posted B Cut times in the 100 and 200-yard backstrokes, respectively.
Indiana diving struggled on the women’s side, as they dropped both events. 2024 Olympian and Boilermaker junior Daryn Wright took first in platform diving, and senior Sophie McAfee won 1-meter diving.
Over the course of the meet, Indiana made up each of the top four spots in seven different swimming events. The men’s team's 236-64 rout marked their largest ever margin of victory against Purdue and its 15th straight win in the series, while the women’s team won comfortably by a score of 189-111 to extend their win streak to 14.
Both Indiana teams will close out the regular season on the road in a battle against No. 11/10 University of Louisville on Friday at Ralph Wright Natatorium in Louisville, Kentucky.
