Chambana Sun

The Illinois swim and dive team concluded their participation in the Big Ten Championships on Saturday, February 22, 2025, in Columbus, Ohio. The event's highlight for the team was the performance of the 400 freestyle relay team consisting of Sydney Stoll, Molly Yetter, Logan Kuehne, and Laurel Bludgen. They set a new school record with a time of 3:20.56, finishing in 12th place.

Head coach Jeana Kempe expressed her pride in the team's achievements. "I am so proud of this team," she said. "From the very beginning of the season we knew this team was going to be special. This team is the definition of love and famILLy. They showed up for each other day in and day out. This senior class rose to the occasion as fantastic leaders and we couldn't be more excited for the future of this program!"

Sydney Stoll had a notable individual performance by swimming the program's second-fastest 100 freestyle at 49.50 seconds during preliminaries, securing her spot in the C finals where she matched her preliminary time to finish 20th overall.

Sophia Paduano and Kalina Nikolaeva both achieved top-10 program marks in the 200 backstroke preliminaries with times of 1:59.66 and 1:59.88 respectively.

In diving events, Bethany Mercer placed 26th in platform diving with a score of 196.55, while Elle Crisostomo finished in 36th place scoring 173.80.

Kayla Duran emerged as a leading scorer for Illinois as a freshman by earning points from her performance in the 100 breaststroke where she finished in 12th place with a time of 1:00.47.

Overall, Illinois finished in 13th place at the championships with a total score of 211 points.

The standings were topped by Ohio State with a score of 1,313.5 followed closely by Indiana and Michigan.

Illinois will next compete at the Last Chance Meet scheduled for February 28 through March 1 in Louisville, Kentucky.