{"id":625222,"date":"2025-10-25T12:57:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T19:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=625222"},"modified":"2025-10-25T13:06:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T20:06:43","slug":"bella-sims-shines-as-michigan-sweeps-northwestern-and-ucla-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/bella-sims-shines-as-michigan-sweeps-northwestern-and-ucla-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Bella Sims Shines as Michigan Sweeps Northwestern and UCLA Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bella Sims Shines as Michigan Sweeps Northwestern and UCLA Women<\/strong><\/p>\n

The University of Michigan swim and dive teams welcomed Northwestern plus the UCLA women to Ann Arbor Saturday for a Big Ten clash. The Michigan women, led by Olympian and NCAA champion\u00a0Bella Sims<\/strong>, dominated the competition with scores of 205-92 against Northwestern and 193-103 against UCLA. The men’s meet also went to the home team, with the final margin 186-114.<\/p>\n

Sims was brilliant in her first official home dual meet as a Wolverine. Leading off the 400 medley relay, she clocked 49.87 for the country’s first sub-50 performance of the season in the 100 backstroke. She followed that up with two individual wins. Sims dominated the 200 freestyle in 1:41.43 , just a hundredth off the top time in the country held by Virginia’s Anna Moesch<\/strong> (1:41.42). Sims clocked a mark of 1:51.26 to finish atop the 200 back<\/p>\n

Sims,\u00a0Letitia Sim<\/strong>,\u00a0Brady Kendall\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Stephanie Balduccini<\/strong> combined for a time of 3:26.82 in a dominant 400 medley relay performance, and\u00a0Rebecca Diaconescu\u00a0<\/strong>followed with a win in the 1000 free (9:40.72). Sim beat the field by close to three seconds in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 58.58, and she returned later in the day to crush the 200-yard field in 2:08.02. Hannah Bellard<\/strong> blasted the field in the 200 butterfly with a time of 1:54.07, and she later dominated the 400 IM in 4:07.88.<\/p>\n

In the sprint freestyle events, Kendall won the 50 (21.74) while Balduccini took first in the 100. Diaconsecu’s second victory came in the 500 free with a time of 4:45.32, and Leila Fack<\/strong> followed with a 100 fly performance of 52.22. Michigan’s\u00a0Kiarra Milligan<\/strong> finished first in 1-meter diving (296.30), and the team of Balduccini, Kendall, Fack and\u00a0Ellie Jo Piersma<\/strong> had the top time in the 200 free relay (1:28.61). Kendall was the top performer on the squad with a split of 21.36.<\/p>\n

UCLA’s\u00a0Claudia Yovanovich<\/strong> topped the 100 back (52.87), and\u00a0Eden Cheng<\/strong> finished atop 3-meter diving (299.80).<\/p>\n