Northeastern swim and dive (3-2, 0-0 CAA) faced its first loss in a dual meet this season against the University of Connecticut Huskies (2-1, 0-1 Big East) Nov. 8 at UConn’s Wolff-Zackin Natatorium.
The team lost 180-120 despite its dominance in sprint freestyle and relays.
The meet started off well, with Northeastern taking first and third in the 200-yard medley relay. The “A” team (1:41.43), composed of sophomore Delaney Alonso, graduate student Elisabeth Bendall, freshman Alex Fuller and junior May Bradburn, out-touched UConn by less than a second.
The team struggled, as it did against MIT and Harvard, in the 1,000-yard freestyle. The top Northeastern finish came from freshman Abigail Gowern (10:28.04), who finished fourth, more than twenty seconds behind UConn’s senior Norah Rome (10:06.40) and eight seconds behind third place finisher junior Courtney Phillips (10:20.15).
Freshman Siena Griffiths (1:51.62) fought hard to earn points for Northeastern in the 200-yard freestyle with a first place finish. The other NU Huskies in the event, freshman Eliana Auerbach (1:55.47) and sophomore Peyton Knightly (1:58.91), did not fare as well, touching in sixth and seventh, respectively.
Northeastern continued to struggle in the 100-yard backstroke, with the top finishes coming from freshman Sophie Bromley (55.49) and Alonso (55.53), who finished second and fourth, respectively.
The Northeastern women repeated the second and fourth finish in the 100-yard breaststroke, with Bendall (1:04.43) touching in second and freshman Alex Campion (1:05.29) finishing fourth.
The team has not improved in the 200-yard butterfly from previous meets this season as Northeastern took sixth and seventh courtesy of sophomore Kate Kerber (2:08.10) and seventh freshman Rory Keller (2:11.09).
The Northeastern sprinters worked to make up for lost points in the 50-yard freestyle, with Bradburn (23.10) taking first, junior Mary Nordmann (23.32) taking second and senior Kotoko Blair (23.59) taking fourth.
The points were quickly lost in the 3-meter diving. Senior Anelise Kim (240.60) took fourth followed by sophomore Maddie Wong (235.88) in fifth.
The sprinters again pushed hard in the 100-yard freestyle: Fuller (50.93) took first and Nordmann took second (51.50). Northeastern had a strong showing in the 200-yard backstroke as well, where Bromley (2:00.88) took second and Alonso (2:02.94) took third.
The NU Huskies scored only three points in the 200-yard breaststroke: Bendall (2:22.62) took fourth and Auerbach (2:24.11) took fifth.
The distance group struggled again in the 500-yard freestyle, with the top finishes coming in fifth and sixth from Gowern (5:03.42) and Griffiths (5:04.95). The team again scored only three points in comparison to UConn’s 16.
Fuller (54.88) pulled through for the NU Huskies in the 100-yard butterfly, taking first by just 0.05 seconds. She was followed by Bradburn in second (54.93).
Diving suffered again in the 1-meter, with UConn sweeping the podium, leaving Kim to take fourth (234.08) and freshman Kailyn Aquino (221.03) to take sixth.
In the 200-yard individual medley, Campion (2:06.92) took a hard-fought third, and Bromely (2:08.35) took fifth after losing out on fourth by almost a second.
In the final event of the day that Northeastern competed in, the 400-yard medley relay, the NU Huskies had a strong showing, taking first (3:25.00) and third (3:32.04).
Northeastern did not have any athletes compete in the 200-yard backstroke, and subsequently, the event was not scored.
The Huskies will be back in action at the Terrier Invitational hosted by Boston University Nov. 21-23.
