It was an up-and-down year all season for the ISU swimming and diving team, but after Saturday, team members feel they can walk away and say they had a successful season.

The team wrapped up its season on Sunday after a long week of competing in the Big 12 Championship and finished it off with the last chance qualifier on Sunday.

The Cyclones ended up finishing fifth place out of six teams at the Big 12 Championship. In doing so, four school records were broken.

“Breaking records is one of the goals we set from the beginning and it made me very happy that we broke four at conference,” said head coach Duane Sorenson.

Team members were happy as well.“Our performance at the Big 12 Championships this year was outstanding,” said senior Lindsay Wegner. “All the girls really stepped up and raced.”

That’s not all that came out of the meet. Last year, Iowa State squeaked by Nebraska in the Big 12 Championship. This season Nebraska came back and won a close match in Beyer Pool, but lost to Iowa State at the Big 12 Championships again.

“Placing 5th above Nebraska again for the second year in a row really means a lot to all of us as a team,” Wegner said. “After Nebraska barely beat us in the dual meet this year, we all had the determination to beat them at conference.”

Iowa State closed out the year the way each of the girls wanted to. They came away with a few wins, and teammates say the team competed at a higher level than last year.

“As a team, everyone is proud with what they accomplished, almost everyone had personal best times and even set some school records,” Wegner said. “All three relays — the 200 Medley Relay, 400 Medley Relay and the 200 Freestyle relays — setting new school records shows that as a team we all did our part in season to compete at the level we did this year at the Big 12’s.”

The Cyclones have a lot to look forward to next season. Sorenson said he was proud of every single girl, but says next year, the team will be competitive as well.

“This year all of the freshmen got a lot of experience and all improved their times throughout the year,” Sorenson said. “The sophomores improved greatly as well and will be ready to go for next season. The juniors performed well and want to work had so that their senior year will be a very memorable one.”

But with every class that moves up, a class of seniors leaves that will be missed in a big way. “I’m going to remember all the mornings I had to wake up at 6 a.m. to jump in a ridiculously cold pool to the irreplaceable memories with the team,” Wegner said. “I’m going to miss spending so much time with everyone and the friendships that have grown over the past four years.” The team will have a last chance meet March 13-15, being held at Missouri. The meet takes place March 19-21 in College Station, Texas