Huskers Shorten the Gap After Day Two of Big Tens

The Nebraska swimming and diving team had another successful day at Big Tens. Two Husker swimmers and one diver moved on to the finals in the evening which included a few record breaking performances and capped off a solid second day.

In the morning preliminaries, plenty of Huskers showed their strength. In the first heat of the 500 yard freestyle, Sutton Marvin hopped out in front of the crew and won the heat with her best time of the season (5:03.01), also good for 75th overall. Taylor Acheson followed suit and won the second heat of the 500 free with a career-best time (4:56.91), capturing 52nd overall. In the fourth heat of the event, Rachel Powers successfully topped her season best time (4:57.56) and finished in fourth place and 56th overall.

Maggie Berning capitalized in the fifth heat of the 500 free, placing third in the heat, 46th overall and setting a career best time (4:54.58). Audrey Coffey swam to a new career-best in the sixth heat of the event (4:50.52) and placed 30th overall. In heat seven, Katelyn Kilpatrick finished in fifth (4:53.28) and 43rd overall, while Molly Rosenthal finished in sixth (4:54.67) and 47th overall. Autumn Haebig finished it off in the final heat of the 500 free with a season-best time of 4:43.13, good for third in the heat and eighth overall.

Haebig's time was good enough to push her into the finals in the evening, with the eighth best time overall, which was good for an A-final qualifying spot in the finals, as well as an NCAA B provisional time nationally.

The next event was the 200 IM, where Berkeley Livingston started it off for the Huskers in the third heat of the event. She racked up a second place heat finish with her new career-best time (2:04.22). Madison Coughlen swam to a seventh place finish in the fifth heat (2:03.14) while Tori Beeler swam to a third place finish in the ninth heat, finishing 10th overall and re-broke the school record that she previously owned (1:58.30).

Beeler's school-record breaking time is her new career best and the time was good enough to land her the second-best spot in the B-Final, pushing her to the finals in the evening.

In the 50 yard freestyle, Kaitlyn Barth had the best preliminary time out of the Huskers, finishing in 57th place and capping a new career-best (23.58), while Gwen Worlton was close behind her and wound up in 63rd (23.70). Izzie Murray swam to a 76th place finish overall (23.97), while Gabby Baratta finished 106th overall (29.90).

In the one-meter dive, Sara Troyer led the way like she has been doing for much of the year, finishing 10th overall (262.15). Troyer's score got her into a finals consolation round where she again placed 10th with another great score (271.55). Hallie Roman had a solid outing in the prelims, landing in 26th place (232.50) while Grace Tiernon captured 40th place (217.10)

Onto the finals in the evening, Autumn Haebig started the Huskers off with her A-final race in the 500 free. She re-broke her school record time in the event (4:41.83) and placed eighth in the Big Ten to continue her hot start to the week.

Tori Beeler raced in the 200 IM B-Final where she also re-broke her school record in the same event from earlier in the afternoon. Beeler placed 12th in the Big Ten in the race with her new time (1:58.24).

Ending the night with the 400 medley relay, the Husker swimmers featuring Autumn Haebig, Gwen Worlton, Madison Coughlen and Tori Beeler, finished 11th in the race with a time of 3:39.01, good for third all-time on the relay's list.

Head Coach Pablo Morales is pleased with his team's performance to this point and is in search of another good day tomorrow.

"This is what I've been hoping for," Morales said. "Certainly we want every swim, every dive, every performance to be a lifetime best. It doesn't always happen that way, but we try to get as high of a percentage of life best's because it's something they've never done in their lives before, so it's always a really great feeling. We have always tended to get better from session to session as the meet progresses, so hopefully we'll stay on that track."

The Huskers stay in 10th place , like the night before with 158 points and two more nights ahead of the swimmers and divers. Nebraska is just three points back from ninth place and 10 points back from eighth place. Ohio State leads the charge with 561 points, followed by Michigan with 478 and Indiana with 338. The Huskers will be back in the pool again tomorrow, Feb. 21, with preliminaries beginning at 11 AM.