Huskers Set Sights on 2019-20 Season

After another successful season where Nebraska ended the year with its best finish in the Big Ten Conference (8th), the Huskers will look to take another step in the right direction with veteran experience and new faces on the roster.
 
Head Coach and former Olympic gold medalist swimmer Pablo Morales enters his 19th season with Nebraska. Morales will coach a team lead by 18 upperclassmen, which include a strong senior class of six swimmers: Tori Beeler, Carla Gonzalez-Garcia, Savannah Savitt, Lindsey Stalheim, Gwen Worlton, Allie Worrall and lone diver Abigail Knapton.
 
Of the seniors, the most decorated is captain Abigail Knapton. A three-time first-team All-American diver, Knapton placed in the top six in each of the three diving events at the Big Ten Championship meet. At the NCAA Championships, she placed fifth in the platform and fifteenth in the Three-Meter Dive. With another year of experience under her belt, the Huskers have a big opportunity to capitalize and make an even bigger impact in the postseason.
 
Sophomore diver Jessica Warak also looks to continue her impact and help the Huskers finish even higher toward the end of the season as she was the only other Husker to compete at the NCAA meet. Warak finished 22nd in the platform dive, which was a fantastic finish to a strong freshman year.
 
Junior leaders and voted captains Autumn Haebig and Izzie Murray are poised to join Knapton in being key members of this year's team. Haebig competed at the NCAA Championships as a freshman and had another successful season last year. Murray improved as well, setting a new Nebraska record in the 200-yard butterfly. Both swimmers look to make a run down the stretch and will help set the tone for the season.
 
Nebraska's seven seniors played a large role in last year's successful season. At the Big Ten Championships, the seniors combined for six finishes in the top-24 and a few finishing just outside of the top-24 mark.
 
Beeler is coming off another fantastic year where she placed in the top five 14 times all season. She still holds the record in the 200-yard IM (1:59.02) and continued her success at the Big Ten Championships finish in the race, placing 20th.
 
Gonzalez-Garcia specializes in the 100-and 200-yard freestyle and backstrokes. She placed 24th in the Big Ten for the 200-yard freestyle as she continues to make leaps of improvement from years prior.
 
Worlton dominated the breaststroke last year, holding the team's top times for both the 100-and 200-yard breaststroke. At the Big Ten Championships, she finished 18th in the 200-yard breaststroke and capped off another solid season.
 
The Nebraska divers will have a lot of renewed experience, led by Abigail Knapton, the most accomplished diver in the teams history. She is joined by junior Grace Tiernon, sophomores Hallie Roman, Sara Troyer, and Jessica Warak as well as incoming freshman from Conroe Texas, Reagan Hinze.
 
Hinze brings a lot of promise to an already impressive group of divers. In high school, she was a four-time AAU All-American, a seven-time USA Diving Zone Qualifier and first-team All-State.
 
The junior swimming class has the ability to help the team take another leap forward in 2019-2020 with several of them receiving top times last year. 
 
Haebig finished with team best times in four different events, the most top times held by a single person last year. She is lethal in multiple strokes, but primarily featured in freestyle.
 
Murray specializes in the butterfly, as she captured a team best time in the 200-yard race. She finished second in the 100-yard butterfly, right behind graduated senior Dana Posthuma, meaning Murray will be thrust into the primary spot in both races.
 
Clara Walstad is one of several other juniors looking to make pushes toward the top-24 places in the Big Ten. She will look to be the primary swimmer in the 50-yard freestyle, along with senior Allie Worrall. Walstad is also a key member of several relays that will look to improve their times from previous years.
 
Madison Coughlen, Jessica Pentlarge and Gabby Baratta all return to the Huskers after successful sophomore seasons. The trio will look to help solidify the junior class and provide the Huskers with more top-24 times.
 
Nebraska's sophomore class made a huge impact to start off their careers last season and the younger Huskers will look to improve on what was a fantastic first season in 2018.
 
Several sophomores swam great times and made a key impact last year. The class also has the most swimmers returning, with a total of 13, meaning the Huskers will have even more experience in the swimmers second year.
 
Coffey, a sophomore from Naperville, Ill., started her season off with a bang as she was a runner-up or winner of six different events she competed in last year. She produced an astounding five career bests in the 100-yard fly, the 200-yard free, the 500-yard free, the 1000-yard free, and the 1650-yard free.
 
Coffey also finished in the top-24 at last year's Big Ten Championships, placing 19th. With Coffey's skill in the long-distance races, the Huskers should be in great shape to take a step forward and compete for better times at the Big Ten Championships.
 
Maggie Berning, now a sophomore from Ohio, was also a big part of the Husker's young squad last year. She swam a top-24 time at the Big Ten Championships, finishing in 22nd in the 200-fly, but also making an impact in the long distance freestyle, adding to the threat Coffey provides the team.
 
Another Husker who finished her freshman season with success was Katelyn Kilpatrick. The Florida swimmer will look to take a big step forward from her last year times and attempt to be a force to be reckoned with in the freestyle. She posted four career bests and finished in the top-five nine times in her races.
 
The Husker's sensational freshman diver, Jessica Warak, had herself a fantastic year as well. She will look to build on a great start to her career where she was an NCAA Championship qualifying diver, along with Abigail Knapton.
 
Warak placed in the top-24 in every single one of her dives at the Big Ten Championships. She placed 19th in the Three Meter Dive, 18th in the Platform Dive and 12th in the One Meter Dive. She also recorded three career best scores in each of the dives mentioned above, with 295.80 in the One Meter, 331.27 in the Three Meter and 273.95 in the Platform.
 
At the NCAA Championships, Warak placed 22nd in the Platform, which is a great spot to be in as a freshman. The Husker divers this year have a chance to be phenomenal and will surely help the team in the postseason tournaments.
 
Nebraska had another solid recruiting year, adding seven new swimmers to the team. To start, Nebraska added Colorado native Kimberly Langahen to the squad. Lanaghen competed at Fairview Highschool in Boulder and was an All-American in 2016 as a member of the 200-yard medley relay.
 
From right here in Lincoln, Berkeley Livingston will look to add her skill to the bunch in 2019-2020. She was the Lincoln Journal Star's "Athlete of the Year" and a four-time Junior National qualifier. To add to her impressive resume, she holds Midwestern age group records in the 50-yard fly, 400-yard IM, and 200-yard fly.
 
Amanda Mathiasen, a freshman from up north in Minnesota, brings another thick skillset to the Huskers. She qualified for the Minnesota State Championships every single year in Highschool, as well as a member of the Academic All-State team and an All-Conference selection in her four years also.
 
Another Illinois swimmer in Molly Rosenthal, looks to add her potential as well. Primarily a freestyle swimmer, the Husker's receive Rosenthal, who is a three-time sectional champion in the 500-yard freestyle, 2016 and 2017 team sectional champion member and State Qualifier. She also qualified for state in three separate seasons.
 
Kaitlyn Barth, a citizen from Madison, Wisc., chose the Huskers over Miami-Ohio, Iowa, and her home state of Wisconsin. Barth brings much needed relay power to the team and will look to make a huge impact from her first time in the pool. At Edgewood Highschool, Barth helped her relay win the State Championship in the 4x800 meter relay and finish sixth in the State in the 4x400 meter relay all in 2018. In 2017, Barth was a member of the runner-up finishing 4x800 meter relay team.
 
On the diving side of things, Reagan Hinze joins Nebraska from down under in Texas. She will look to be an immediate help to the Husker's dangerous diving core. At Conroe High School, she managed she managed to be a two-time National Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association All-American, Texas Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association Scholarship Recipient, UIL 6A District Champion, Diver of the Year, UIL 6A Regional Champion, UIL 6A State Bronze Medalist, and first team All-State. Hinze also set the school record for an 11-dive score (471.85). At the club level, Hinze competed for Woodlands Diving Academy and was a four-time AAU All-American, Texas Amateur Athletic Federation Local Athlete of the Year, seven-time USA Diving zone qualifier, and two-time USA Diving Spring National Qualifier.
 
The Huskers begin their season with the CSCAA National Collegiate Open Water Championships held in Lawrence, Kansas on Saturday, Sept. 14 at 10 a.m. Two weeks later, the Huskers host the annual Scarlet and Cream Intrasquad meet at the Bob Devaney Sports Center Natatorium on Friday, Sept. 27 at 4 p.m.
The Huskers then shift into regular-season gear with two road meets in the same weekend. The first falls on Friday, Oct. 11, where the Huskers face the South Dakota State Jackrabbits in Brookings, South Dakota. The next day, Saturday, Oct. 12, the Huskers move on to Cedar Falls to face the University of Northern Iowa Panthers.
 
The following week, the Huskers return home for a dual with the Iowa State Cyclones at the Devaney Center Natatorium on Saturday, Oct. 19 at noon. The Husker swimmers will take the next two weeks off before hopping back on the road to revisit Lawrence, Kansas to dual with the Jayhawks on Saturday, Nov. 9 at 2:00 p.m.
 
The road stretch continues for the swimmers as they head to Missouri for the Mizzou Invite in Columbus from Wednesday, Nov. 20 to Friday, Nov. 22. Following the week and a half break, the Huskers will split up with two meets during the same time period. First, the U.S Open held in Atlanta, Georgia from Wednesday, Dec. 4 through Saturday, Dec. 7 and second, the Minnesota Diving Invitational held in Minneapolis, Minnesota from Thursday, Dec. 5 to Saturday, Dec. 7.
The next Tuesday, Dec. 10, the Husker divers will extend their trip to the U.S. Diving World Cup Trials at a location TBA.
 
After the semester break, the swimmers will host back-to-back meets at the Devaney Center Natatorium. The first meet will be a dual with the Omaha Mavericks on Saturday, Jan. 18 at 11:00 a.m. The next week, the Huskers second home meet in a row and final home meet, the team will face the Illinois Fighting Illini on Saturday, Jan. 25, at 11:00 a.m.
 
The Huskers then travel to Piscataway, New Jersey to dual the Rutger Scarlet Knights from Friday, Jan. 31 through Saturday, Feb. 1 at 5:00 p.m.
 
A week and a half later, the Husker swimmers travel to Iowa City, Iowa for the Big Ten Championships from Wednesday, February 19, to Saturday, Feb. 22. Immediately following the week, the team travels to Missouri again for the Last Chance meet from Saturday, Feb. 29 to Sunday, Mar. 1.
 
The Husker divers will then head to Dallas, Texas for the NCAA Zone Diving Meet from Monday, Mar. 9 to Wednesday, Mar. 11.