I'll admit that I've been in a bit of a honeymoon phase with Iowa swimming and diving this year. I was so excited that the team still existed that I haven't really concerned myself with how the team is actually doing. Partially because it's nice to subsist on good vibes only and partially because I knew it would take some time to rebuild a team that was saved from the chopping block only a few months before the program was set to be cut.
Last weekend's Hawkeye Invite showed that this group has more than good vibes in mind this season. The team scored EIGHT Top-10 times in Iowa history and sent 18 swimmers to the finals in their respective events.
The first Top-10 swim came on Day 2 of the weekend-long Invite when freshman Scarlet Martin won the 100m fly event with the fifth-best time in program history (53.84). The Hawkeye 200m medley relay team of Kennedy Gilbertson, Sheridan Schreiber, Scarlet Martin, and Maddie Black also swam their way into Iowa history with the 10th-best heat all-time (1:40.75), finishing 2nd in the event. The Hawkeye divers joined in on the fun as well, with Makayla Hughbanks' 355.40 3m score reaching 5th all-time for the Hawks.
Iowa kept the party going on Day 3 of the Invite, with five more scores earning spots in the Hawkeye all-time Top-10. Divers Geneva Pauly and Claire Hartley each earned spots on the Top-10 list. Pauly's 257.1 ranks 3rd-best all-time in the platform dive and Hartley's 233.9 ranks 6th. Sabina Kupcova swam the 6th-fastest 100m free in Hawkeye history (50.26), Aleksandra Olesiak swam the 10-best 200m breaststroke (2:18.28), and the 400m relay crew of Gilbertson, Kupcova, Molly Pedersen, and Martin won their event with the 5th-fastest time in Iowa history (3:20.08).
In these individual team sports like swimming, track, and cross country, progress is often measured in terms of personal-bests as much as it is measured by overall team performance. Obviously, the team results are great to have, but the best way to achieve those is to see each individual consistently improve their own performance. Already in this early swim season, we've seen the team constantly achieve personal bests and now we're starting to see them break into historic times for the Hawkeye program. Iowa is not a historic swim and dive power, but when you start to notch top times for a Big Ten school, you know you're on the right path.
I know I mentioned it at the top too, but it's worth bringing up one more time, this program was months from being cut entirely last year. Seeing these times set by underclassmen like Martin, Pauly, and Hughbanks is a massive positive sign for the future of this program. The team is incredibly fortunate to have upperclassmen like Gilbertson and Olesiak around to help preserve some of the culture that existed around the program before all of last year's turmoil and to pass along some of the passion for the program that led to these women to fight for its survival. It will be a process to rejuvenate a team that was nearly lost, but seeing the next generation of Hawkeye swimmers break into the record books so early, supported by upperclassmen who are successful in their own right, feels like the perfect balance to help that process move forward as fast as possible.
