‘A unified force’: Inside Indiana women’s swimming and diving unlikely Big Ten title
BLOOMINGTON — Indiana women’s swimming and diving team coach Ray Looze tried not to put any pressure on his team going into the final day of this year’s Big Ten Championship meet at the Morgan J. Burke Aquatic Center on the campus of Purdue University.
Ohio State, the four-time defending champion, built up a sizable lead over the Hoosiers during the first three days of the meet. This was a Buckeyes team that in 2023 extended their dynasty by winning 11 events and breaking seven pool records.
“We basically had to make up 50-plus points in the last session, typically that's way too much to ask for,” Looze said.
Looze knew how tough the final session can be from having lost three Big Ten championship meets on the last event during his two-plus decades in Bloomington.
“I’ve pretty much had all the bad happen in the close ones,” Looze said.
He had a much different experience this year.
Indiana won in walk-off fashion by beating Ohio State in the 400-meter freestyle relay to win the meet by one-half a point (1359-1358.5). It was the closest finish of all-time in the Big Ten women’s championships.
The Hoosiers won nine events to capture the program’s seventh Big Ten Championship, and first since 2019.
Indiana swept the Big Ten swimming and diving conference championship for the first time since 2019 with men winning a third straight title. Michigan is the only other team in the Big Ten to win the men’s and women’s conference title in a single season.
'I believe in Karma, and believes it comes back around'
In one of the most emotional moments of the season, Indiana looked across the pool and saw Ohio State players and coaches cheering their misfortune.
The Hoosiers 400-yard medley relay team of Kacey McKenna, Brearna Crawford, Anna Peplowski and Kristina Paegle had just been disqualified after winning the race (3:28.22) by a fraction of a second over the Buckeyes (3:28.37).
Peplowski, an Olympic hopeful, jumped early on the third leg before Crawford touched the wall. Peploswki was inserted into the race on the 100-fly leg at the last moment, something Looze hadn’t done all year.
“We were being really aggressive, it was like going for it on fourth down on our own 20-yard line,” Looze said. “We were doing everything we could to win.”
Indiana grew concerned when it took officials an extended amount of time to finalize the results. They have to review the splits of each leg to see if there’s a gap to see if there’s any inconsistencies.
The disqualification was a huge swing in the standings considering a first-place finish is worth 64 points.
"Ohio State cheered our DQ, their team cheered and their staff cheered,” Looze said. “I'm a really superstitious guy, that's bad karma. I believe in karma, and believe it comes back around. We didn't say anything, it was already hard to be DQ'ed then have them cheer.”
It was particularly hard on Peplowski, who finished in second place in the 500-yard freestyle event that she was favored in earlier that day.
“She's trying to make the Olympic team later this year and one of the things I've talked to her about is becoming more mentally tough,” Looze said. “You have to perform under extreme pressure. You have to learn how to do it. It’s scary. She said she didn’t know how to move forward, and I told her this is your chance to show you can handle the moment.”
Peplowski went on to be IU’s top scorer at the meet. After the DQ, she finished first in the 200-yard freestyle for a second straight year and helped the Hoosiers win the 200-yard freestyle relay.
That win in the 200-yard freestyle relay (1:26.66) alongside Ashley Turak, Chiok Sze Yeo and Paegle came after Ohio State was disqualified after a would-be first place finish (1:26.10) less than 24 hours removed from IU’s own DQ.
"It was like a movie,” Paegle’s mother Inga told The Herald-Times.
Looze said the silence that accompanied the announcement of Ohio State’s disqualification was his proudest moment of the meet.
“The girls all said, 'don't you say a word, no cheering, let's move on,'” Looze said. “But it evened things back up. We were only 23 points down versus 100."
'She won the day and earned it in a real spectacular way'
Indiana’s path to the Big Ten title was still an uphill battle after exchanging disqualifications.
The Hoosiers needed a series of results to break their way on the final day of the meet like Mackenna Lieske winning a swim off in the 200-yard breaststroke preliminaries. She ended up picking up nine points in the finals of the event with a 17th place finish.
Looze would turn to Indiana assistant coach Luke Ryan after each event and ask, “are we still in it?"
The answer would have been no if Indiana diver Skyler Liu finished in anything but first place in the platform diving finals.
Liu, who won the 3-meter diving title on Saturday with a personal best 379.95-point performance, picked one of the most challenging dives in her vast arsenal for her final dive on Sunday — a three-and-a-half somersault into a pike position out of a handstand.
“Not many women in the world do it and do it with the confidence that she does,” Indiana diving coach Drew Johansen said. “We are a judged event, and for the judges to see athletes take a chance like that on the final dive, it predisposes them to give a good score because of the risk the athlete is taking.”
It was also the final dive judges saw in the event. The dive order in the finals is the reverse order of the finish in the preliminaries and Liu was in first place at that point.
“That’s part of the strategy, but not every athlete likes having it all on the line like that,” Johansen said.
Liu later told her coach she was “trembling” with fear, but the junior put on a calm face as she climbed up the three stories to the platform needing 78.80 points to win first place.
“I've been on the deck of the biggest meets in the world all the way to the Olympic Games to win gold medals for Team USA,” Johansen said. “I've never been part of something as exciting as that championship.”
Looze was in awe of Liu’s final dive.
“I've never seen anybody do that in 32 years,” Looze said, with a laugh. “She just nails, like a vacuum cleaner sucking her into the pool. She beats the girl from Minnesota by four-tenths of a point.”
Liu’s second title in as many days helped her win the Big Ten Diver of the Championships and set the stage for Indiana’s walk-off win.
'She just always manages to pull it off'
Everyone in the Morgan J. Burke Aquatic Center knew the stakes when the swimmers lined up for the 400-yard freestyle relay. The final event of the Big Ten tournament would determine a winner based on whoever finished in front between Ohio State and Indiana.
The Hoosiers 400-yard relay team included Peplowski, Turak, Ella Ristic and Paegle.
Ohio State built up a big lead through the first three legs of the race. They sought to close out the race early by putting their top swimmer, Amy Fuller, in the third leg.
“Ohio State pushed their chips into the table,” Looze said. “We were so far behind, it looked like more than a body length.”
It was a sound strategy until Paegle jumped into the pool. The Bloomington South alum has established herself as one of the best relay anchors in the country born out of her experience on the international stage that included setting multiple junior world records in the 2021 FINA World Cup.
"Kristina is just a monster on relays,” Looze said. “You know you have a chance no matter how far behind you are. I've seen her do incredible things on the end of relays, things I haven't seen her do for herself.”
The team setting motivates Paegle more than anyone Looze has ever coached.
“We’ve seen her do it a lot,” her father Tadas said. “It's kind of like her specialty. I don’t know if I was even nervous. I think she always manages to pull it off."
Paegle lived up to her reputation with a 46.65 second anchor and powered Indiana to a second-place finish (3:11.37) while Ohio State finished in third (3:12.70).
“We have (computer) simulations that we run, we ran the simulator before the meet and always lose by 100 points,” Looze said. “I can't say we win this meet one time out of 10, it’s more like one out of 100.”
Inga Paegle said there wasn’t a dry eye in the cream and crimson dominated stands.
"I think it was the most emotional meet I've ever been to,” Paegle said. “They just felt like a unified force."
That unified force will now turn its attention to the NCAA championships where it will have competitors in 17 events including nine swimmers and all five relay teams. The four-day meet is March 20-23 at Gabrielsen Natatorium in Athens, Georgia.
Indiana could add to that number at the NCAA Zone C Diving Championships in Louisville this weekend.
2024 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships: Indiana women’s swimming qualifiers
Brearna Crawford - 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke
Mariah Denigan - 500 freestyle, 1,650 freestyle
Anna Freed - 200 butterfly, 200 IM, 400 IM
Ching Hwee Gan - 500 freestyle, 1650 freestyle
Elyse Heiser - 200 freestyle, 500 freestyle, 1650 freestyle
Kacey McKenna - 50 freestyle, 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke
Kristina Paegle - 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle
Anna Peplowski - 100 freestyle, 200 freestyle, 500 freestyle
Ashley Turak - 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle, 100 breaststroke
200-yard freestyle relay
400-yard freestyle relay
800-yard freestyle relay
200-yard medley relay
400-yard medley relay
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Why IU women's swim team is 'unified force' going into NCAA title meet
