A season that was defined by hard work and team chemistry came to a close  Friday as ISU senior Imelda Wistey competed in the NCAA Championships.

The ISU swimming and diving team started off well as one team, which is why sophomore Marissa Engel said it was a special season.

“It was nice to see that in our dual meets we were able to beat teams that, in the past, we weren’t as confident going up against,” Engel said. “It was really nice to see us attack the dual meets right from the beginning.”

Iowa State started off with a tie against Nebraska and three wins against South Dakota State, South Dakota and Nebraska-Omaha, but the Cyclones had trouble at home meets, losing to TCU, Iowa and Illinois at Beyer Hall.

ISU coach Duane Sorenson said the improvement came when the team started to believe it could compete at the Big 12 Championships.

“It’s just a belief factor that they belonged at the Big 12 Championships,” Sorenson said. “We’ve been taking fifth place and they kind of expect us to take fifth place, but now that we’ve beat some teams in our dual meets, they have a belief that they could do it at the Big 12 Championships.”

Once that belief factor kicked in for the Cyclones, they won four straight meets going into the Big 12’s after their loss to Illinois. They beat UNI, Ohio, West Virginia and Kansas. The victory against the Jayhawks came on senior night and was the first home victory of the season.

Freshman Karyl Clarete credited a lot of the team’s success to its chemistry.

“I thought the dynamic of the team helped out a lot,” Clarete said. “We all knew where we wanted to be at Big 12’s, so I think everyone did a really great job keeping that goal in mind throughout the whole year.”

That goal was to finish in the top three at the Big 12 Championships, which the team accomplished with a third-place finish, scoring 541.5 from Feb. 26 through March 1 in Austin, Texas.

Wistey was the only swimmer to get an invitation to the NCAA Championships in Minneapolis, though.

With the seniors moving on and the underclassmen ready to get back in the water, the Cyclones already have their sights on next season.

“Since we had such a great Big 12’s, I feel like everyone knows that we have to go into next year knowing we can still get better, and I think that’s where everyone’s at,” Clarete said.

Iowa State will be allowed eight hours a week during the spring for conditioning workouts as a team. Sorenson said they will be spending seven hours of that in the water and the other hour in the weight room.

“We’re back in the pool and workouts are a little shorter but they’re more technique based,” Engel said.

With the team already preparing for next season, Sorenson already set a goal of finishing in the top three in the Big 12’s in consecutive seasons.

“Imelda [Wistey] went to the NCAA meet and that was really special but we’d like to have more than just one person, and we have some people that we think have a good opportunity to make that,” Sorenson said. “It goes back to the journey to get there, and you do all the little things everyday in practice, and the end of the season comes because of that.”