NCAA Div. I Women: Illinois Squeaks By Michigan State

HONOLULU, Hawaii. Jan. 2. THE University of Illinois women¹s swimming and diving team captured its first Big Ten victory 124-119 over the Michigan State
Spartans to even its conference record at 1-1. The Illini are now 4-1 in dual meets this season.

The match-up with the Spartans was originally
scheduled for Jan. 5, but the cancellation of the Rainbow Invite allowed for the earlier meet.

Freshman Crystal McAdam was Illinois¹ first winner of the meet. She took top honors in the 1000 freestyle with a time of 10:22.70. In the next race of the competition, Jessica Aveyard continued the winning ways. She recorded a time of 1:53.68 to win the 200 freestyle. She also finished with a time of 5:04.21 to win the 500 freestyle.

Anna Christiansen won the 400 individual medley in 4:29.44. Christiansen also won the 100 freestyle (53.66).

In one of the closest races of the meet, Astrid Matthias pulled off a first place finish in the 100 butterfly with a time of 58.18. In the second to last race of the night, Darcy Adler won the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:06.61.

The Illini were down by four points going into the final event. Illinois won the final relay with a time of 3:34.60 to beat the Spartans and earn their first conference victory.

"It was a tightly contested meet all the way through," head coach Sue Novitsky said. "We switched-up our line-up a little bit to give some other people opportunities to swim other events. Michigan State swam with a lot of heart and a lot of emotion and they had some great races. We¹re training hard and we raced tough. We did what we needed to do. Tonight was all about racing, it was not necessarily about times. It was nice to see them come out and finish strong."

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