BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – It was a night of memorable moments for Indiana swimming and diving as the Hoosiers produced three automatic qualifiers for the 2023 NCAA Championships and set a program record in the final night of competition at the Ohio State Fall Invitational Saturday (Nov. 19) inside the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion.
It started in the first final of the evening session as sophomores Ching Hwee Gan and Mariah Denigan went back-to-back in the 1,650-yard freestyle, posting NCAA B cut times of 16:05.69 and 16:08.72, respectively. Senior Mikey Calvillo went a B cut 14:53.70 to place third in the men’s race.
Sophomore Anna Peplowski earned her third individual win of the week in the 200-yard backstroke after becoming just the fourth Hoosier woman ever to hit 1:52 in the event. Her time, 1:52.00, beat her previous career best (1:53.04) by over a second. Fellow sophomore Elyse Heiser posted her third top-10 finish of the meet in the same race, going 1:55.80 to place sixth and earn a B cut. Senior Brendan Burns clinched IU’s sweep of the 200 back, going 1:40.66.
In the 100-yard freestyle, the Hoosier men placed fourth, fifth and sixth via senior Van Mathias (42.60), sophomore Rafael Miroslaw (42.78) and junior Gavin Wight (42.83). Freshman Kristina Paegle continued her solid week with a runner-up finish in the women’s race, going 48.15.
IU’s breaststroke group stole the show. In the women’s 200-yard breaststroke A final, senior Noelle Peplowski beat her preliminary time by over three seconds and threw down a 2:05.52, automatically qualifying her for the national meet. The swim made Peplowski the second-fastest woman in the event in program history, trailing only Olympian Lilly King. The senior was one of four Hoosier A finalists in the women’s race as sophomore Brearna Crawford (2:09.41) placed fourth, senior Mackenzie Looze (2:10.96) took fifth and Catherine Graham (2:15.11) finished 10th.
The IU men took three of the top four spots in the 200 breaststroke. Sophomore Josh Matheny (1:51.68) and junior Jassen Yep (1:53.17) went 1-2 and junior Maxwell Reich (1:53.69) was not far behind in fourth. The trio represented the top three qualifiers from the prelim session and all finished top four in the 100-yard event on Friday as well.
Freshmen Katie Forrester and Lily Hann impressed in the women’s 200-yard butterfly, finishing third and fourth, respectively, with times under 1:58. Junior Tomer Frankel won the men’s event with a 1:42.72 mark as junior transfer Armando Vegas went 1:45.77 to place fourth.
Sophomores Quinn Henninger and Carson Tyler put on a masterclass on the platform Saturday night, finishing first and second. Henninger won with a score of 416.55, posting three dives better than 70 points. His teammate was close behind with 412.65 total points while not recording lower than 64 points on any of his six attempts.
The Hoosier women closed the meet with a program record and an NCAA A cut in the 400 freestyle relay. The quartet of Anna Peplowski, senior Ashley Turak, junior Ella Ristic and Paegle clocked a 3:13.45 to shatter the mark previously set by Morgan Scott, Christine Jensen, Shelby Koontz and Bailey Andison, who went 3:14.32 in 2019. In lane four, the Hoosiers trailed by a fraction of a second to Ohio State in five through 300 yards. The freshman Paegle, with OSU senior Amy Fulmer right beside her, outpaced her opponent with a blazing fast 47.07 split in the anchor leg to grab the win. Her time would have been the third-fastest split at the national meet last season.
