Ohio State Repeats As Big Ten Champions With 1,584 Total Points

2021 BIG TEN WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIPS

• When: Tuesday, February 23rd to Saturday, February 27th | Prelims 11am | Finals 6:30pm (5pm Tuesday) CT
• Where: Minneapolis, MN (Central Time Zone) / Diving @ Purdue University
• Defending Champion: Ohio State (1x) (results)
• Live Results
• Streaming: Big Ten Network
• Championship Central
• Day 1 Recap
• Day 2 Recap
• Day 3 Recap
• Day 4 Recap
• Day 5 Recap

TEAM SCORES (FINAL)

1. Ohio State – 1584
2. Michigan – 1326.5
3. Indiana – 1066.5
4. Northwestern – 992
5. Wisconsin – 749.5
6. Minnesota – 555
7. Nebraska – 542.5
8. Iowa – 424
9. Purdue – 414
10. Penn State – 410
11. Michigan State – 217
12. Ilinois – 177
13. Rutgers – 60

The 2021 Big Ten Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships have come to a close in Minnesota, with the Ohio State Buckeyes successfully defending their historic 2020 team title. Placing second were the Michigan Wolverines followed by the Indiana Hoosiers, Northwestern Wildcats, and Wisconsin Badgers to round out the top five teams.

This is now Ohio State’s 7th Big Ten team title in program history, now tied with Minnesota for the 2nd-most team titles in conference history. Michigan still has the most titles in history with 17.

Ohio State scored 1,584 points to win the title, which is the highest team score at Big Tens in history. The Buckeyes scored the second-most all-time last year, winning their first team title in 34 years with 1,503.50 points. C-final scoring at the Big Ten Championships did not get added to the program until 2016, which greatly inflated team scoring. The Buckeyes scored more than 100 points in four events across the entire meet: 50 free (150), 200 IM (113), 100 breast (110.5), and 100 free (105).

Ohio State continued to flex their deep squad just as they did in 2020. Looking at all swimmers on every team who swam prelims yet did not qualify for finals, Ohio State had the least number of swimmers miss finals every single session. For example, on day four Michigan had 6 swimmers miss the top 24 while Ohio State only had 2 swimmers not qualify into finals. Overall, Ohio State had 14 swims that did not make finals. The next-best team was Michigan with 25 non-final swims.

While Ohio State had graduated the most points from last year, they still returned 860 points to Michigan’s 936 returning points. The Buckeye seniors, however, were the most dominant class at this meet having scored 422 total points, which is 200 points more than any other senior class at this meet.

Ohio State also won four individual titles along with both medley relays and the 200 free relay. Scoring 92 points for the Buckeyes was senior Kristen Romano, who won both the 200 IM (1:54.19) and 400 IM (4:06.75) along with taking second in the 200 back. Senior teammate Katherine Trace scored the 2nd-most points with 79, which include her 400 IM runner-up finish and 3rd-place 200 fly finish. Junior Veronica Tafuto won the 500 free on the first full day of competition while sophomore Hannah Bach won the 100 breast the next day after placing 6th last year.

What made Ohio State’s performance even more dominant was the fact that every single athlete scored double-digit points at this meet. The lowest scorer managed to pick up 14 points, which is a B-final swim.

OHIO STATE SCORING BREAKDOWN

Scoring breakdown provided by Andrew Mering.