Full Weekly Honors: Big Ten Men / CollegeSwimming.com Women
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Steele Johnson and Kaersten Meitz have garnered weekly honors after the returning All-Americans posted three individual event victories apiece during the Purdue swimming & diving teams' season-opening weekend.
Johnson was named the Big Ten Men's Diver of the Week by the conference office. Meitz was recognized by CollegeSwimming.com as the Women's Swimmer of the Week for the Big Ten.
Johnson swept the springboard diving events at the Indiana Intercollegiates meet. He was also victorious on 1-meter in the dual meet with Miami (Ohio). The 2016 Olympic silver medalist posted impressive list scores above 410 points in all three victories. Saturday he averaged 73 points per dive for list scores of 440.50 on 1-meter and 443.15 on 3-meter Saturday. He was victorious by at least 58 points in all three of the event wins.
Meitz demonstrated her versatility by winning freestyle races of 100 (50.70), 500 (4:50.13) and 1,000 yards (9:55.67) in length. She also contributed to a pair of relay winners, posting the fastest split in the entire field of the 400 free relay Friday vs. Miami and the 200 medley relay at the Indiana Intercollegiates. Individually, she swept the distance events against Miami and raced in the sprints the following day, adding a runner-up finish in the 50 free (23.73) to her victory in the 100. Teammate Jackie Smailis out touched her by two hundredths of a second in the 50.
Johnson was a six-time Big Ten Diver of the Week as a freshman in 2014-15. The conference ruled he was not eligible for the honor last year while exercising an Olympic Practice Waiver even though he did compete (and win) at the USA Diving Winter Nationals, which featured a number of active college divers.
Meitz was one of a program-record four swimmers from the Purdue women's team to be recognized as the Big Ten Swimmer of the Week by the conference office last year, winning the award after sweeping the distance freestyle events in a dual meet at Indiana. CollegeSwimming.com has added to its coverage this year with men's and women's Swimmers of the Week from each conference. Indiana's Lilly King, an Olympic gold medalist this summer, was the Big Ten's selection as its Swimmer of the Week.
Nick McDowell (four), Eddy Zawatski and Smailis also won at least three individual events during Purdue's season-opening weekend. Emily Converse, Brandon Loschiavo, Emily Meaney and Jinq En Phee joined McDowell as freshmen to win at least one event during their first weekend of collegiate competition. Loschiavo was victorious on the 3-meter Friday vs. Miami, keeping Johnson from a full sweep of the weekend's diving events.
Johnson and Meitz will lead the Boilermakers into action Friday in South Bend. The men have a traditional head-to-head dual meet against No. 16 Notre Dame while the women compete against Miami (Fla.) and Rutgers as well as the No. 24 Fighting Irish. The meet begins at 5 p.m. ET.