WHITE CAPS. WHITE WATER. Northwestern swimming is BACKKK, baby!!!
The ‘Cats’ men’s and women’s swim and dive teams kicked off their respective seasons on Saturday night at the Norris Aquatics Center, taking on Miami-Ohio. It was NU’s second-straight season starting the year against the Redhawks and, like last year, Rachel Stratton Mills’ squads made easy work of their opponent, with the men taking a 187-130 victory and the women winning 230-87.
Defending its best finish at Big Ten Championships since
2008, the men’s team was led Saturday by Stuart Seymour, who won the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard backstroke, and Kyle Ly, who won the one-meter and three-meter diving competitions. Meanwhile, the women’s team, which finished ninth last year at the Big Ten’s, completely dominated the Redhawks, with a stellar debut performance from Flawia Kamzol — one of the team’s highest-ranked recruits of all time, ranked No. 28 in the Class of 2026 rankings — who won the 100-yard backstroke and 100-yard butterfly.
Results for the meet can be found on the app Meet Mobile, or on Swimcloud’s meet page for the event.
Like last year, I’ve included an “Explanation of dual-meet scoring system” at the bottom of this article. If you are interested in learning about how team and high point scoring works for these kinds of swim meets, make sure to check it out!
Men’s recap
Though the NU men may have been expected to win by more against the Redhawks, the team still got a W under its belt, winning by a healthy margin of 57 points.
Of the meet’s 17 events, Northwestern won 11, sweeping both the relays and the diving competitions. A Seymour-Kos-Ha-Duncan tandem won the 200-yard freestyle relay (1:20.51), a Seymour-Shuster-Duncan-Kos team won the 400-yard freestyle relay (2:53.23) and a Seymour-Staples-Schuster-Kos team won the 200-yard medley relay (1:25.42). Ly, a third-year from California, won both one-meter and three-meter diving.
However, Miami (OH) and NU split the meet’s individual swimming events six to six, partly because the ‘Cats’ best swimmers competed in some off events, as is custom for early-season meets. Owen Hoban of Miami (OH) took home the meet’s high point award with wins in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:00.23), 200-yard butterfly (1:46.44) and 100-yard individual medley (49.84). Northwestern’s top performer was Seymour, who finished second in the meet’s high point standings after wins in the 50-yard freestyle (20.10), 100-yard backstroke (45.74) and three relays, while Ly took home third.
Women’s recap
Unlike the men, the lady ‘Cats left minimal Miami (OH) scoring opportunities in the pool, securing victories in 14 of the meet’s 17 events and beating the Redhawks by a walloping 143-point margin.
Like the men, NU’s women brought out the broomstick on the relays, with a Davis-Papanicholas-Kamzol-Pan team winning the 200-yard medley relay (1:39.81), a Pan-Davis-Kamzol-Martin team taking the 200-yard freestyle relay (1:32.10) and a Bleakney-Smith-Teply-Chow team coming out on top in the 400-yard freestyle relay (3:22.65). The ‘Cats won each relay by over a second, while taking the 400-yard freestyle relay by a gap of over five seconds.
Meanwhile, Northwestern’s women had seven separate individual event winners, four of which took multiple events: Kamzol, winner of the 100-yard backstroke (53.71) and 100-yard butterfly (52.76), Maggie Papanicholas, winner of the 100-yard breaststroke (1:01.61) and 200-yard breaststroke (2:14.05), Zoe Nordmann, winner of the 500-yard freestyle (4:51.05) and 200-yard butterfly (2:00.49), and Chloe Sharp, who won both the one-meter (261.10) and three-meter (280.05) diving competitions.
With two individual event wins and two relay wins, first-year Kamzol took home the meet’s high point honors in her first-ever Northwestern competition. Kamzol’s victorious debut was accompanied by good starts from some of NU’s other top 150-ranked freshmen recruits. Sprinter Aya Ferguson finished sixth in the meet’s high point standings with a win in the 50-yard freestyle (22.92) and Iris Kim placed second in the 800-yard freestyle (8:03.63) and third in the 500-yard freestyle (4:58.41).
Looking ahead
After starting the season with men’s and women’s victories over the Redhawks, the ‘Cats’ strength of schedule is set to change drastically.
On Friday, the ‘Cats will head south to Bloomington to face the Indiana Hoosiers, where they will be heavy underdogs. Led by the legendary Ray Looze, the Hoosiers’ men’s team won the Big Ten in 2026 and was ranked No. 2 in SwimSwam’s preseason poll, while their women’s team finished second in the Big Ten in 2026 and was ranked No. 5 in SwimSwam’s preseason poll.
Two weeks after its dual-meet against Indiana, the ‘Cats will return to the state of Indiana to face Notre Dame (Oct. 23), before closing its October slate at Short Course World Trials in Westmont, Illinois (Oct. 28-31).
Explanation of dual-meet scoring system
At the start of a collegiate swim season, it’s always good to review the way that college dual-meet team and individual high point scoring works, so that you are able to keep track of the scores of swim meets whether you are attending a meet live, tracking it digitally or reading a recap like this article.
For each individual event, team’s accumulate points based on where individual swimmers/divers placed in that event. For dual-meets, points are awarded as followed:
1st place: 9 points
2nd place: 4 points
3rd place: 3 points
4th place: 2 points
5th place: 1 point
For swimming relays, each of which involve four swimmers per relay team, points are awarded differently:
1st place: 11 points
2nd place: 4 points
Most importantly, this scoring system determines the total number of points a team earns over the course of a meet. However, individual swimmers and divers also accumulate points based on the same system. At the end of a meet, there are high point standings showing which athletes—swimmers and divers alike—individually contributed the most to their team’s total. Relay points are not included in an individual swimmer’s point tally.
Though almost all the meets on Northwestern’s year-to-year schedule are dual meets, there are usually a couple of tri- or quad-meets as well. For these meets, unless otherwise designated as an invitational event, the meet is scored as if each pair of teams swam a separate dual meet (e.g., Northwestern vs. Miami (OH) and Northwestern vs. Southern Illinois).
