The Iowa State swimming and diving team came away with two wins over the weekend thanks to its stellar performances on the diving board and in the swimming pool.

The Cyclones beat the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) 240-108 and came out on top of North Texas 227-121. North Texas also beat UNI 189-163.

Details, details, details

Some races came down to the small details this weekend, which ended up handing the Cyclones their loss last weekend at West Virginia.

Earlier this week Head Coach Duane Sorenson said the team would continue to work more on the details in practice to make sure they were ready for the competition this weekend and to make sure they were doing all the little things right, like kicking harder and coming through the wall correctly. 

“I’m very pleased to see we could keep our act together and do the little things,” Sorenson said. “I think we learned a lot when we swam at West Virginia and carrying it over into this meet.”

Dominant Diving

The Cyclones came away with first and second place in both the 1 meter diving on day one and the 3 meter diving on day two. 

In the 1 meter diving, sophomore Michelle Schlossmacher Smith came away with the first place finish and freshman Jayna Misra took second, both earning themselves zone cuts. During day two, it was Misra who took first and Schlossmacher Smith who got second. 

Diving coach Jeff Warrick was also very pleased with how senior Alex Aaberg and sophomore Jessica Coffin dove, saying that both had shown improvement during the double dual meet.

“I was really excited with how they did, it’s what you want for your team, all their hard work to pay off,” Warrick said. “They’ve been real consistent and working hard, it’s starting to come out even more.”

First place finishes

Iowa State had 14 first place finishes out of the 19 events of the meet, something that scored them far ahead of their competition and helped them get the wins over both teams.

Some of those finishes the swimmers had to fight back from behind, like in the 100 yard butterfly, when freshman Trinity Gilbert and junior Wyli Erlechman were both behind the UNI swimmer in first place and overtook her to place first and second, respectively.

Some swimmers also went head-to-head the whole race, as was the case for junior Lehr Thorson in the 200 yard breaststroke. Thorson and UNI’s Moriah Ross both finished within 0.09 hundredths of a second of each other, but it was Thorson who was able to touch the wall first and claim first place.

“I love racing against Moriah Ross,” Thorson said. “It was really cool that it ended that way and I’m excited for the outcome and it was fun racing against her.”

The Cyclones will get back to Big 12 play next week with their last home meet of the season against Kansas for another two-day meet at Beyer Pool. Day one will begin at 6 p.m. Friday and day two will start 10 a.m. Saturday, with a special senior presentation starting at 9:45 a.m.