Ondrej Zach

MARQUETTE — The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams at Northern Michigan University combined to pull off a four-meet sweep at the PEIF pool on Friday and Saturday.

Each team defeated St. Cloud State and Davenport, with the men winning against St. Cloud 178-116 and the women victorious 171-121, and the women downing Davenport 168-124 and the men coming out on top 181-98.

The Wildcats’ Ondrej Zach set a pool record in the men’s 1,000-yard freestyle. He posted his record time in the fourth event on Saturday, clocking 9 minutes, 15.16 seconds.

On Friday evening, NMU won all but one relay.

In the mixed 400 butterfly relay, Northern’s Meritxell Font Cantarero, Michaela Nelson, Ryan Lund and Ezra Billings won in 3:37.91, the 400 backstroke relay of Erikas Kapocius, Heidi Billings, Camilla Carbone and Thibault Auger won in 3:37.12, and in the mixed 400 breaststroke relay, the quartet of Freddie Deweese, Zoe DeKievit, Ella Houwers and Roberto Camera won in 4:10.50.

Saturday opened with the 200 medley relays. The NMU women won with Billings, DeKievit, Font Cantarero and Becca Burrows in 1:46.93 and the men also were victorious with Auger, Camera, Lund, and Billings in 1:32.49.

Seven Wildcats were multiple winners.

For the women, freshman Heidi Billings took the 200 back in 2:02.58, 100 back in 56.93 and 200 IM in 2:08.47, while Font Cantarero won the 100 fly in 57.98 and 200 fly in 2:08.78 and Becca Burrows doubled up in the 50 free in 24.65 and 100 free in 53.66.

For the men, Camera won the 100 breast in 56.41 seconds and 200 breast in 2:06.07, junior Erikas Kapocius touched first in the 200 free in 1:45.37 and 200 individual medley in 1:56.80, while Zach won both the 1,000 free in his record-breaking time and 500 free in 4:46.27.

Junior Ryan Leach swept the men’s diving, scoring 239.77 points in the 1-meter and 240.67 in the 3-meter.

Northern closed out the meet with a double victory in the 200 free relay, the women with Donna Hannig, Burrows, Houwers and Nelson in 1:38.55, and the men with Martin Wolmarans, Ezra Billings, Camera and Ivan Amillo Escobedo in 1:24.38.

Next up for the Wildcats is a downstate road trip on back-to-back days. NMU travels to Allendale to take on Grand Valley State on Oct. 29 and to University Center near Saginaw to face Saginaw Valley State on Oct. 30.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.