The season came to a close for the ISU men’s swimming team over the weekend with a 24th place finish at the NCAA Championship Meet in College Station, Texas.

The Texas Longhorns claimed their second consecutive national championship while Stanford finished in second place and Tennessee following in third.

All six ISU swimmers that participated received All-American status and some set lifetime best times.

Cyclone head coach Trip Hedrick said he was pleased with the effort put forth by the ISU swimmers involved in the meet.

“For Cyclone swimming, over the past few seasons, it was one of our better NCAA performances,” Hedrick said. “I was very pleased that we were able to have some our best swims at the meet.”

The meet started off for the Cyclones on day one of the meet with the 200-yard freestyle relay. Seniors Peder Skoog, Jeff Gahan, junior Dylan de Bruin and freshman Jono Newton made up the relay team.

The team just missed out on making the championship finals of the event, but did place ninth with a consolation final time of 1:19.03. The performance earned the members of the relay team All-American status in the event.

The top ISU finisher in the 50-yard freestyle was de Bruin in 18th place with a time of 19.96 seconds. Newton placed 30th and Gahan finished 60th.

Day one ended for the Cyclones on a good note. The 400-yard medley relay team comprised of senior Henrik Ingesson, sophomore Mike Christianson, Skoog and de Bruin placed 14th and achieved All-American status in the event. The relay team posted a time of 3:15.75 in preliminaries and a consolation mark of 3:17.20.

The Cyclones stumbled a bit at the beginning of day two. The 200-yard medley relay team was disqualified in preliminaries.

Iowa State would try to recover. Ingesson posted a time of 49.24 seconds in the 100-yard butterfly, good enough for 35th place.

Christianson received 40th place in the 100-yard breaststroke. He posted a mark of 56.15 seconds.

Skoog would close out day two for Iowa State with a 28th place finish in the 100-yard backstroke. He finished with a time of 49.28 seconds.

Iowa State started off day three of the meet with a 25th place finish by Skoog in the 200-yard backstroke. He posted a mark of 1:46.08.

The Cyclones regained momentum with de Bruin placing 15th in the 100-yard freestyle. The junior got a time of 43.49 seconds in preliminaries and put up a time of 44.21 seconds in the consolation final. De Bruin earned the title of All-American in the event.

Iowa State finished up the meet with the 400-yard freestyle relay. The relay team of de Bruin, Skoog, Ingesson and Gahan missed the consolation final by about two-tenths of one second. The team finished 17th with a time of 2:58.77.

The meet signified the end of strong ISU careers for Gahan, Ingesson and Skoog. However, for de Bruin, Christianson and Newton, this year’s championship meet experience could be helpful in the future.

“Any time in any sport, the more experience you get at the highest level, the better you will be,” Hedrick said.

Hedrick said this year’s hard work paid off for the team.

“These guys walked the walk,” he said. “They set their goals early, they let their actions speak for their goals, and they reaped the benefits of their hard work.”