Women’s Swim and Dive: Wisconsin Last Chance Meet Recap

Northwestern sent six swimmers to compete at the Wisconsin Last Chance Meet, and Ekaterina Nikonova made the most of the opportunity to greatly improve her chances at being selected to participate in the NCAA Division I championships.

The Wisconsin Last Chance Meet is an annual competition that offers Big Ten athletes one final opportunity to qualify for the NCAA championships set to take place this year from Wednesday, March 18th to Saturday, March 21st at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Oftentimes, teams only send their athletes that have an actual chance to secure a qualifying time, meaning that the meet is very small, only consisting of a few swimmers from a small group of teams.

This summer, the NCAA approved changes to the format for the Division I Championships just weeks before the beginning of the season.

Previously, there were two time standards listed for each event offered at the championships: an ‘A’ time and a ‘B’ time. If a swimmer achieved the ‘A’ time, they would automatically qualify for the meet in that event, while if they got the ‘B’ time they would be considered, but not guaranteed a spot. The NCAA would select ‘B’ time swimmers in order of fastest times until they met the overall meet cap of 322 swimmers.

After the changes implemented to the championships’ format this summer, this year there is just one time standard for each event. Swimmers who meet the time standard for a particular event are considered in the event for NCAA’s, with swimmers being chosen for each event in the same way as before, in order of fastest times until the meet cap for participants is reached.

A more in-depth summary of the changes made to the NCAA Division I Swimming Championships can be viewed here: https://swimswam.com/ncaa-approves-changes-to-2026-division-i-championships-weeks-after-season-starts/.

Additionally, the general NCAA Division I Championships meet time standards can be viewed here: https://swimswam.com/ncaa-releases-2026-division-i-swimming-diving-championship-standards/.

Northwestern sent six swimmers to compete at the Wisconsin Last Chance Meet: Lindsay Ervin, Sydney Smith, Ekaterina Nikonova, Audrey Yu and Hana Shimizu-Bowers.

Nikonova posted the highlight swim of the meet, as the only Wildcat to post a season best time at the competition. Nikonova had a truly spectacular swim in the 200-yard freestyle, touching at 1:44.64, a 0.70-second improvement upon her previous season best time from just two weeks ago at Big Ten Championships.

Entering the weekend’s Big Ten championships, Nikonova already had NCAA time standards in the 50-yard freestyle, 100-yard freestyle and 200-yard freestyle, but reaching the standard alone only deems an athlete eligible for selection and by no means ensures a spot. Nikonova swam the 100-yard freestyle and 200-yard freestyle events in Madison with the hope of improving her chances of being selected for NCAAs.

With Nikonova’s new season best 1:44.64, she is still on the outside looking in for NCAA selection, but has a chance, with her time ranked 60th of all swimmers in Division I this season. Last year, just 49 swimmers swam in the 200-yard freestyle’s preliminaries at NCAA’s. However, considering that some of the swimmers with top times this season will choose to swim other events than the 200-yard freestyle at the competition, Nikonova does still have an outside chance at selection.

Northwestern’s Ervin will have similar chances at being selected for NCAA’s in the coming days. Ervin has qualifying times for the meet in both the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard freestyle, but she is ranked 58th and 60th respectively in those events, meaning that she is by no means a guarantee to be selected.

In Madison, Ervin swam the 50-yard freestyle twice, but was unable to improve upon her season best time of 22.10, posting a 22.16 and 22.42.

Smith was the other swimmer of interest for the Wildcats at the Last Chance Meet. A Houston native, she entered the meet with a 1:44.58 in the 200-yard freestyle which ranks her 59th in Division I. Smith swam the 200-yard freestyle in Madison, but was well off her season best with a 1:45.68, meaning that she will have similar chances at event selection for NCAA’s as Nikonova and Ervin.

Ervin, Smith and Nikonova will hold their breaths on selection day, with the hope of joining Northwestern women’s swim and dive’s lone NCAA-lock Zoe Nordmann, who is set to compete in the 500 and 1650-yard freestyle events, at NCAA’s in two weeks.

The three other Northwestern swimmers who competed at the meet — Yu, Shimizu-Bowers and Pan — all did not have any NCAA qualifying times entering the meet and did not achieve qualification for the competition in Madison. All three swimmers added time compared to their season bests entering the meet, with Yu swimming the 100-yard breaststroke, Shimizu-Bowers swimming the 500-yard freestyle and Pan swimming the 50-yard freestyle.

Further results for the meet can be found on SwimCloud’s meet page for the event.

Additionally, the pre-selection psych sheets for NCAA Division I Championships can be viewed here: https://swimswam.com/ncaa-releases-pre-selection-psych-sheets-for-2026-womens-ncaa-championships/.