Saturday was a special day at Beyer Pool that turned out bittersweet.

It marked the last meet the senior swimmers and divers would ever perform at Iowa State as students. It came all the way down to the end of the meet, but the Cyclones could not pull off the win over rival Nebraska. Iowa State lost the hard-fought battle 156-145.

The Cyclones led from the start of the meet all the way down to the last 2 events. The meet started out with the Cyclones winning the first two events. In the first event, the ISU 200-meter medley relay team barely out-reached the Cornhuskers’ charging relay team. In the second event, ISU sophomore Jenny Vondenkamp easily won the 1,650 freestyle with a time of 17:19.92.

After the strong start, it went back and forth between the two teams all the way down to the end. In the 200 individual medley, Nebraska took the top three spots and also took the lead. The meet ended with another Nebraska win in the 400 freestyle relay, which sealed the win for the Huskers.

Despite the loss, ISU swimmers tried to stay upbeat about it.

“Nebraska, out of every other team in our conference, is most comparable to our team,” said Marni Benson, senior swimmer who picked up two wins on the day. “Everybody went out there and gave it their best today and we have nothing to hang our heads about. Everybody swam a good race and it just wasn’t one person that lost it for the team. Nebraska just swam better today.”

This meet was one more building block leading up to the Big 12 Championship and it helped give the Cyclones some perspective on how they will match up.

“As a team we have done a lot of work and have been working on trying to be supportive of each other just being up there and cheering,” Benson said. “I think that’s really going to stand out at conference.”

Benson won both the 100 breaststroke and the 200 breaststroke. Teammate Jeli Nixt hung right with Benson in both races, finishing second and third respectively. “It’s a lot of fun going into a race knowing that you are going to have someone right next to you pushing you all the way,” Benson said about swimming with Nixt.

Junior Frances Calzada had a good meet as well. She anchored the winning 200 medley relay team and won the 50 freestyle by less than a second. Another junior, Abby Glaser, also helped the same 200 medley relay team to a victory and won in a close finish in the 100 butterfly.

In diving, Tien Tran went about her business as usual as she won the three-meter competition and placed second in the one meter. The win gave Tran her 13th diving victory of the season.

The Cyclones didn’t win their last home meet of the season, but the seniors still created memories.

“It’s sad but I think I’ll remember this meet for a long time and I’ll be back next year watching everybody else,” Benson said.

The Cyclones return to action this Friday in their last conference meet of the year against Kansas.