Men’s and Women’s Swimming
Even without divers, the women’s squad topped their No. 21-ranked Iowa opponents, 152-142, while the full men’s team fell to the No. 19 Hawkeyes by a score of 171-129 in Iowa City this weekend.
The men took first place in six events, including Jordan Wilimovsky in the 1000 and 500 yard free, Almog Olshtein in the 50 and 100 yard free and diver Andrew Cramer in 1 meter diving. While the Wildcat’s ‘A’ relay finished first in the 200 medley relay, they were disqualified, giving the Hawkeyes a 22-point swing to start the meet.
The women’s team took first place in nine events, but it was also the continual Wildcats in second, third and fourth place that sealed the win for NU. Sophomore Lacey Locke and freshman Annika Winsnes each took first in two events.
Grade: Men’s team gets a B-, and the women’s squad gets an A.
Men’s Basketball
After holding an 11-point lead over No. 13 Maryland at halftime, the Wildcats struggled defensively in the last 10 minutes and eventually fell 68-67 to the Terrapins.
Midway through the second half, the Terrapins began a full-court press and switched to a 1-3-1 zone, both seriously disrupting Northwestern’s offensive flow. On the other end, Maryland’s guards drove the basket and scored time and time again, scoring 13 of their last 16 points from layups and free throws.
Freshman Bryant McIntosh lit up the stat line for NU with 21 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists and only one turnover, but missed the first free throw of a one-and-one setup that could have put Northwestern up by three points with 29 seconds left.
Grade: NU can’t seem to close out tight contests. Sunday night their effort was valiant, but in vain. B
Men’s Tennis
The No. 28-ranked Wildcats fell to the No. 2 Oklahoma Sooners 4-1 at the ITA Kick-Off this past weekend.
Doubles teams of Strong Kirchheimer with Fedor Baev and Sam Shropshire with Alp Horoz placed second and third, respectively, in doubles. No Wildcat won a singles match against their highly ranked opponents.
Grade: C, there were no real NU standouts and OU is very good
Women’s Tennis
After starting the weekend with a 4-3 loss to No. 32 ranked Arizona State, the No. 17 Wildcats rallied to beat No. 21 Rice 6-1 on Sunday morning at their own ITA Kick-Off in Evanston.
Against Arizona State, freshman Erin Larner was the only Wildcat to win a match against a ranked opponent, taking down No. 62 Ebony Panoho of ASU. In Sunday’s matches against Rice, NU won all doubles matches and won five of six singles matches. Grade: B-
Wrestling
While all ranked Northwestern wrestlers won their matches, No. 22 NU still fell 31-9 to No. 10 Illinois. Jason Tsirtsis, No. 1 at 149 pounds, picked up a win to begin a new win streak after his first loss in more than a year at Iowa earlier in the week. Alex Polizzi, No. 13 at 197 pounds, and Pierce Harger, No. 6 at 165 pounds, were the only other Wildcat victors of the match.
Grade: Only ranked wrestlers won? Not a good showing against an instate opponent. C-
Fencing
Fencing suffered their first four losses of the season this past weekend, falling to Temple and Pennsylvania at the Philadelphia Invitational in Philadelphia and to Columbia and Notre Dame at the NYU Invitational in Jersey City. Despite the losses, NU was a combined 7-4 at their two meets.
After starting Sunday with a 16-11 loss to Columbia, Northwestern finished the day with a 14-13 victory over Ohio State and a 27-0 sweep of NYU. Junior Kaitlyn Wallace went 3-0 in epee against Yale, Notre Dame, Ohio State and NYU.
Grade: 7-4 is a good looking record for the weekend, especially against highly ranked opponents. A-
Women’s Basketball
While the Wildcats fell 76-75 at Penn State, junior Maggie Lyon scored her 1,000 career point. Lyon finished with 20 points and seven rebounds, and three other Wildcats finished with double digits points scored.
After NU secured a 6 point lead seven minutes into the game, Penn State clawed their way back on top and held their lead until late in the second half. Both teams made their free throws late in the game, but Northwestern only had one made field goal in the last six minutes. Penn State held NU to only 34 percent shooting from the floor and outrebounded the Wildcats 49-32.
Grade: The bench seems to be underperforming as of late. C