Max McHugh Wins Big Ten Breaststroke Titles

Max McHugh won both the 100-yard and 200 breaststroke at last week’s Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It marked the third year in a row he has won the conference title in both events. University of Minnesota photo courtesy of Maddy Olson.

For the third season in a row, University of Minnesota men’s swimmer Max McHugh has won Big Ten titles in both the 100-yard and 200 breaststroke.

One night after winning the 100 breastroke for the fourth year in a row at this season’s conference championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan, McHugh won the 200 breastroke for the third straight season.

McHugh, a Sevastopol High School graduate in his fifth and final season swimming for the Gophers, entered Saturday night’s finals as the No. 3 seed following the preliminary races that morning. 

His winning time in the 200 breaststroke of 1 minute, 50.2 seconds, was also an automatic qualifying mark for the NCAA Championships March 22-25 in Minneapolis.

McHugh’s winning time of 50.8 seconds in Friday’s 100 breaststroke finals also qualified him automatically for the NCAA Championships, where he has won the Division I national title in that event the past two seasons.

Saturday night’s win in the 200 breaststroke was historic for McHugh in several ways. In addition to being the seventh individual Big Ten title of his career, it broke the Minnesota school record of six held by Steve Jackman, who competed from 1961-63.

McHugh is also now one of 23 male swimmers in conference history to win at least that many individual titles.

It also made McHugh the third male swimmer in Big Ten history to sweep the breaststroke events in three consecutive years, joining Michigan’s Paul Scheerer (1965-67) and Indiana’s Cody Miller (2011-13).