With the regular season at an end, women’s swimming eschewed team scoring for individual improvement in its final dual meet before the postseason.

The Maroons (2–7) fell to 12th-ranked DePauw (7–3) 175–117 Saturday in Greencastle, Indiana. The loss brought an end to a rocky regular season for a young Chicago team, which dropped its final six head-to-head meets after getting off to a 2–1 start.

With the conference championships looming, the Maroons strategically held back in the meet. Swimmers neither wanted to come out too fast, meaning they had tapered their training and peaked too early, nor too slow, which would have required hard training to catch the curve.

Although the Maroons posted slower times than usual, they received a number of solid performances. Third-year captain Katherine Yang led the way once again for the Maroons with one first-place and two second-place finishes.

Yang was first to the wall in 1000-yard freestyle with a time of 11:10, nearly 10 seconds ahead of DePauw fourth-year Lauren Winter. Showing off her versatility, she came back to take second place in a pair of middle-distance events: the 200-yard freestyle (2:05.9), and the 500-yard freestyle (5:26.95).

In addition to Yang’s stellar outing, the Maroons received a first-place finish from first-year Rachel Zarnke in the 100-yard butterfly (1:03.84) Zarnke also took third in the 200-yard IM in 2:27.49.

Fellow first-year Kaitlin Roche chipped in with second-place finishes in the 200-yard IM (2:25.55) and the 200-yard breaststroke (2:39.14), as well as a third-place finish in 100-yard breaststroke (1:16.43).

An encouraging sign from the meet for the Maroons was the continued success in the diving events. After sitting out the diver-free Wheaton triangular meet last weekend, third-year Ashley Bourne made up for lost time Saturday, taking first in the three-meter diving event with a score of 179.5. Bourne’s 166.70 was good enough for second in the one-meter diving event.

With the regular season now over, Chicago will have a week to rest up and prepare before flying to Atlanta for the UAA championships. The Maroons will be looking to improve upon their last-place finish at the event last February. For a preview of the event, check out next Friday’s edition of the MAROON.