Michigan Women Swim 1:28.64 200 Free Relay To Lead NCAA As They Sweep Wisconsin, Notre Dame

Oct 23, 2024

The No. 10/13 Michigan women’s and men’s teams collected their first dual meet wins of the 2024-25 campaign. The Michigan men took down Wisconsin in a Big Ten battle, while the women beat both Wisconsin and Notre Dame.

Michigan’s program’s two greatest strengths last season were the women’s sprint freestyle group and the men’s butterfly. Those groups both went to work at the meet, with the women’s sprint group led by a strong performance from Lindsay Flynn. Over the two-day meet, Flynn swam 22.35/49.19 in the 50/100 freestyle. Sophomore Stephanie Balduccini now has a full season of yards experience under her belt and had good performances as well, swimming 22.63/49.27/1:46.89 in the 50/100/200 free.

Flynn also split a 21.78 50 freestyle on the 200 freestyle and 200 medley relays. Balduccini (22.63), Brady Kendall (22.10), Claire Newman (22.13), and Flynn (21.78) combined for a 1:28.64 to blow away the field in the event and rank as the fastest in the league this season.

In the 200 medley relay, Flynn teamed with Casey Chung (24.88 back), Letitia Sim (27.56 breast), and Kendall (23.29 fly) for a 1:37.51 to win the event. In both relays, Michigan took the top two spots.

Rebecca Diaconescu won the 500 freestyle, but Wisconsin’s Maggie Waggoner prevented a Wolverine freestyle sweep by winning the 1000 freestyle in 9:54.36.

2x Olympian Phoebe Bacon and freshman Maggie Wanezek highlighted the meet for the Wisconsin women, who lost to Michigan but picked up the win against Notre Dame. The pair went 1-2 in the 200 backstroke, with Bacon winning in 1:55.61 and Wanezek finishing second in 1:56.54.

Bacon won two other individual events over the two-day meet, taking the 200 IM with a 1:58.50 and the 200 fly in 1:57.37. She also finished second in the 100 fly (53.64) with a field-best 27.72 on the second 50 but ran out of room to catch Michigan’s Natalie Kan and ended up second, .28 seconds back.

Wanezek won the individual 100 backstroke in 53.59 but her best time in the event came leading off the 400 medley relay, the first event of the meet, where she opened in 52.88.

Notre Dame newcomer and “Best of the Rest” recruit Carli Cronk continued to shine in her first collegiate season. Cronk won the women’s 400 IM in 4:15.53, jumping into the program’s all-time top 10 at #8. Cronk owns a lifetime best of 4:12.35, so she should continue to ascend those rankings. She also turned in a season-best 1:48.10 for second in the 200 free and logged a top-four finish in the 200 fly (2:00.57).

NCAA scorer Tyler Ray swept the butterfly events on the men’s side of the meet. Now a junior, Ray swam 46.88 in the 100 fly, leading a 1-2 finish for the Wolverines. That’s almost a second faster than he was at this meet last season, highlighting the improvements he’s made in the past year (at this point last season, Ray had never broken 46 seconds in the event).

He made it a sweep by winning the 200 fly in 1:45.56, this time leading a top-three sweep for Michigan as Colin Geer (1:46.91) and Lorne Wigginton (1:47.91) earned second and third.

Geer won two events of his own, touching first in the 200 IM (1:46.20) and 200 breast (2:00.10), swimming a lifetime best in the latter.

Wigginton arrived in Ann Arbor fresh off an Olympic debut for Team Canada and has been a strong pickup for the Wolverines so far, adding speed in the IMs and 200 fly. Wigginton won the 400 IM in 3:49.59 and was just off his lifetime best from a February 2023 yards meet (3:49.15) in just his third time swimming the event. He also logged 1:47.89 for third in the 200 IM, nearly catching Eitan Ben-Shitrit for 2nd with a 24.99 free split.

With Eduardo Moraes winning the 200/500 freestyle, freshman Jon Jontvedt taking the 1000 free, U.S. Olympic Trials Jack Wilkening winning the 100 back, and Ben-Shitrit, Bence Szabados, and Gal Cohen Groumi winning events as well, the Michigan men won all but two events.

Their streak got snapped with a disqualification in the 200 free relay, which allowed Wisconsin’s Taiko Torepe-Ormsby (20.59), Ben Wiegand (19.37), Chris Morris (20.19), and Sam Lorenz (20.32) to take the win in 1:20.47.

Wiegand also won the men’s 100 breaststroke. After going out just .04 seconds behind Ozan Kalafat, Wiegand split 29.33 on the second 50 yards to pass Kalafat for the win in 55.19.

Up Next

On Oct. 23, the Notre Dame women face Indiana in Bloomington. Wisconsin heads home to host an undefeated Minnesota squad on Nov. 1. Michigan takes on Oakland at home on Nov. 8.