Northwestern, Carthage vs. Lewis

ROMEOVILLE, Illinois, January 7. NORTHWESTERN won all but one event Saturday afternoon in sweeping a double dual meet against NCAA Division II opponent Lewis (112-69) and Division III foe Carthage College (116-81) at the Lewis Pool.
"We looked good today in our first meet after break," head coach Jarod Schroeder said. "Charlie Rimkus had a good IM swim for a pool record and (Matthew) Margritier was close in the 200 free. Both of our relays were close to pool records as well. We will need to be better over the next three weeks, though, as we head into the Big Ten Championships."

Northwestern began the meet with a victory in the 200 medley relay, scoring a time of 1:35.42 from the team of Jake Grosser (St. Charles, Ill./St. Charles East), Tim Smith (Oakland, Calif./De La Salle), Mark Ferguson (Perth, Australia/John XXIII) and Alexander Ratajczyk (Parlin, N.J./Sayreville War Memorial).

Lewis won the first individual event of the day before the Wildcats took over from there. Freshman Matthew Margritier (Leawood, Kan./Rockhurst) put the first individual NU win on the board with a 1:42.04 in the 200 free to capture the event by 2.06 seconds over teammate Dominik Cubelic (Glenview, Ill./Glenbrook South). Jan Hanulik (Cavisov, Czech Republic/Sportovni Gymnazium) placed third overall.

Ratajczyk then came out and tied teammate Chase Stephens (Madison, Wis./Edgewood) to lead a four-way NU sweep of the 50 free with matching times of 21.43 before Charlie Rimkus (Tustin, Calif./Beckman) led another Northwestern top-four sweep of the 200 IM with a pool-record 1:52.04. Senior John Frutiger (Alma, Mich./Alma) (1:54.05), senior Tony Mattar (Lake Orion, Mich./Lake Orion) (1:56.85) and sophomore Brien Gerber (Naperville, Ill./Neuqua Valley) (1:57.79) rounded out the top Wildcats' finishers.

Freshman John Kim (Newport Coast, Calif./Corona del Mar) finished first in the 100 fly with a 51.52 to out-race Cubelic's second-place 53.27 before a third NU four-way sweep occurred in the 100 free led by Toni Valcic's (Ribnica, Slovenia/Gimnazija Ledina) 47.40. Freshman Uula Auren (Helsinki, Finland/Mäkelänrinteen Lukio) was second in 47.82 followed by William Rosler (Bexley, Ohio/Columbus Academy) in third with a 48.88 and Matt Wilcox (Bemidji, Minn./Bemidji) in fourth with a 48.92.

Grosser won the 100 back in 52.43 prior to Varun Shivakumar (Hoffman Estates, Ill./Fremd) taking the 500 free in 4:46.84 as NU's lone entrant. Frutiger (59.54) and Smith (1:02.16) then went 1-2 for Northwestern in the 100 breast.

In the final event of the afternoon, the team of Valcic, Grosser, Stephens and Margritier enjoyed a 7.64 second margin of victory in winning the 200 free relay with a time of 1:23.34.

Northwestern returns to action at 1 p.m. CT Saturday, Jan. 14, when it faces Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.

The above article is a press release submitted to Swimming World Magazine. It has been posted in its entirety without editing. Swimming World offers all outlets the chance to reach our audience by contacting us at Newsmaster@swimmingworldmagazine.com. However, Swimming World reserves the right to choose what material is posted.

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