Swimming and diving team beats Oles in tune-up for Big 12 slate

Matt Gubbels

The ISU swimming and diving team won the first 10 events, and 13 of 16 overall, on the way to a dominating 168-122 victory over the St. Olaf Oles Friday in Northfield, Minn.

The Cyclones (3-1), with a Big 12 dual meet on the horizon, used a 1-2 finish in the opening event of the night, the 200 medley relay, to springboard them to a 46-point victory. The team of Jamie Wieben, Marni Benson, Lindsay Wiesner and Cassandra Nelson (1:51.32) just barely edged out the runner-up squad of Lauren Breunig, Krista Fehl, Lindsay Wegner and Kelly Matzen (1:51.60).

Previously the Cyclones had seven 1-2 finishes along with three occasions in which they swept the top three spots in the first seven events. The Cyclones had three dual event winners in the meet: Kim Rogers in the 100 backstroke (58.98) and the 200 backstroke (2:06.45), Wiesner in the 200 butterfly (2:12.15) and the 400 individual medley (4:53.54) and Wegner in the 50 freestyle (25.23) and the 100 freestyle (54.58).

“Two big performances were the pool records that were set by Lindsay Wiesner in the 200 butterfly and Kim Rogers in the 100 and 200 backstroke,” said coach Jeff Warrick. “The team overall had a strong performance with the swimmers setting four pool records and Haley [Haynes] moving up to third in the all-time top 10.”

Fehl and Breunig took the top two spots in the 100 breaststroke with times of 1:07.82 and 1:09.31, respectively. Other Cyclones who were victorious on the evening were seniors Lydia Smirniotis in the 1000 freestyle (10:34.57), Maggie Peterson in the 200 freestyle (1:57.86) and Shannon Parker in the 200 breaststroke (2:32.56)

Tami Ritchie finished second in the 1000 freestyle with a time of 10:44.90 and Chelsey Walden and Michelle Collins followed Peterson in second and third in the 200 freestyle with times of 1:58.92 and 1:59.66, respectively. The Cyclones also picked up 1-2-3 finishes in the 100 backstroke and the 100 breaststroke with the second and third place finishes in those races going to Nelson (1:00.80) and Wieben (1:02.34) in the backstroke and Breunig (1:09.31) and Madeline Crawford (1:13.98) in the breaststroke. Benson finished second in the 50 freestyle with a time of 25.89 and Melissa Fender finished second in the 100 butterfly in a time of 1:00.96.

Freshman Haley Haynes finished first in diving on the one-meter board with a score of 176.85 and freshman Kali Fryklund finished right behind her in second with a score of 156.60.

“Spending time and working hard has definitely helped up start the season well,” Haynes said. “We need to keep pushing, though.”

“It was a different meet facing a Division III school because the format was not the same for diving,” Fryklund said. “The team performance was good and the meet was a good confidence builder.”

The Cyclones start Big 12 Conference action when they host the Missouri Tigers on Friday at 6 p.m. at Beyer Hall before they travel to both Omaha and Lincoln, Neb. for meets January 27 and January 28.