The Iowa State swimming and diving team (6-3, 1-0 Big 12) pulled off one of its best performances in recent history on Friday night, defeating Illinois State (5-3, 1-1 Missouri Valley Conference) by a score of 191-100.

The Cyclones won 15 of the 16 events in the meet, the most event victories in a meet since 2016.

“I was very happy with the way our team performed and I thought we competed extremely well considering that we’ve had a long schedule filled with meets and practices since break,” said coach Duane Sorenson.

The Cyclones were led by senior distance swimmer Haley Ruegemer and sophomore sprint swimmer Martha Haas.

Ruegemer won the 500 freestyle (5:08.47), the 1000 freestyle (10:40.17) and the 200 individual medley (2:09.09) while Haas was able to win both breaststroke events, going for 1:03.75 in the 100 and 2:21.08 in the 200.

Haas had the walls of Beyer Hall echoing in the 200 yard breaststroke as she was able to defeat Jensen Keck of Illinois State by a mere .06 seconds.

“Haley was outstanding for us and Martha posted her season-best in both of her individual events,” said Sorenson.

After this meet, the Cyclones are now on a three-meet win streak.

In each of the wins, the team’s energy and togetherness has appeared.

“I think we’ve done a great job with supporting each other and not overlooking any opponent lately,” said junior swimmer Anna Andersen. “The team’s atmosphere and attitude has been unlike anything I’ve seen before.”

The Cyclones were able to prove their camaraderie tonight as they collected wins from all different events, leading to their season-best scoring performance.

Mainly though, Iowa State was able to stack up its points through a team effort that not only included wins but also second and third place finishes in many events.

In fact, Iowa State was ahead by enough points in the end that it was able to put in some exhibition swimmers to get action, which is similar to walk-on athletes.  

“The ladies have really been taking pride in their events, no matter their role,” said Sorenson. “But they will have to take it up a step-up next week as we start back up conference play.”

Next week, the Cyclones will be facing West Virginia, who is 3-2 and 1-0 in the Big 12.

The Mountaineers defeated in-conference rival TCU as did Iowa State earlier this season.

That said, it will be vital for Iowa State to keep that intensity they’ve had going into this week.

“With the amount of meets we’ve had lately, we will need to make sure our focus does not fall, and we don’t let up period,” said senior Evan Hundley.