Northwestern University Athletics
Northwestern Rested and Ready for Big Ten Championships
2/22/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming and Diving
Feb. 22, 2011
2011 Big Ten Championships Homepage
Northwestern's Big Ten Championships Notes Package (PDF Format) 
EVANSTON, Ill. -- Northwestern enters its second Big Ten Championships in the Jarod Schroeder era this weekend, Feb. 23-26, in Minneapolis, Minn., with the potential to post some stellar times and qualify multiple Wildcats for the NCAA Championships.
The meet gets underway with a "soft open" Wednesday night, with the teams competing in the 200 medley and 800 free relays. The first full day of preliminary and finals competition is Thursday, Feb. 24. A complete schedule, a link to live results and other information is available at gophersports.com.
A trio of NU swimmers already have earned NCAA `B' provisional qualifying cuts this year, led by sophomore Charlie Rimkus (Tustin, Calif./Beckman) with three. He joins 2010 NCAA qualifiers Alex Tyler (Birmingham, Mich./Birmingham Groves) and Sean Mathews (St. Louis, Mo./Lafayette), each of whom secured a fourth-place event finish at last year's conference meet to punch their tickets to the national stage as juniors.
Also poised to make noise for the 'Cats is senior distance swimmer Peter Park (Princeton, N.J./Peddie School), who is in the midst of a career year in several events, along with sophomore Varun Shivakumar (Hoffman Estates, Ill./Fremd), who has the body type to be a force in the 200 back but has spent the better part of the last two years fine tuning his swimming savvy. He enters this year's meet ranked 16th in the event in the conference according to collegeswimming.com.
A strong freshman class signed by Schroeder and assistant coach Kyle Schack features a pair of sprinters with the ability to score. Dominik Cubelic (Glenview, Ill./Glenbrook South) and Ross McAullife (Shapwick, United Kingdom/Millfield School) have worked very hard during a difficult year of training, and now are rested and ready to show what made them the highest-rated members of this freshman class.
NU also picked up a boost with the addition of junior transfer Jake Grosser (St. Charles, Ill./Saint Charles East), who graduated early from USC before joining the Wildcats to start the winter quarter. He already enters his first Big Ten Championships as NU's top sprinter in the 50 free.
Schroeder, whose team went 7-7 during the dual meet season, ramped up NU's dryland and weight training in 2010-11 to physically prepare the 'Cats for big things come the end of the season, and now hopes his student-athletes see the fruits of their labors this weekend.
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