The Cyclones looked to win the final Cy-Hawk dual meet of the decade Friday night, however Iowa State was not able to pull out a win against the University of Iowa.

Iowa State lost to Iowa in a close and competitive meet 121-179. This loss marks the tenth year in a row the Cyclones have not been able to beat Iowa. The win also clinched the annual Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk series for the Hawkeyes after both basketball teams lost this week as well.

Personal Bests

Despite a disappointing loss for the Cyclones, there were also personal wins for some of the swimmers to be proud of, as a number of them got their personal best times Friday night.

“There were a lot of personal bests,” head coach Duane Sorenson said. “A lot of them were season bests too or they were right on their personal bests.”

Among those who got their personal bests were Lehr Thorson, in the 100 yard breaststroke, Nolwenn Nunes getting her lifetime best in the 500 yard freestyle and Lucia Rizzo getting personal bests in both the 100 butterfly and 200 butterfly. 

“I didn’t even realize that was the time I had went until later on,” Thorson said of getting her personal best. “That definitely puts me in a good place for the rest of the season knowing that I can do that now and what I can do later.”

The 200 yard medley relay team also got their season best time in the race. The team made of Emily Haan, Martha Haas, Wyli Erlechman and Anna Andersen swam a total 1:41.67 on the race.

Close and competitive

Although the Hawkeyes ended up coming out on top at the end, the meet was competitive the whole time, the lead seemingly going back-and-forth multiple times. There was a total of three lead changes throughout the whole meet, as well as a number of first place finishes by the Cyclones.

“We wanted to see our team go out there and race and compete,” Sorenson said. “I thought we did a really good job at that. Iowa always has the individual stars that can seem to pull it out at the last length.”

Diving coach Jeff Warrick also said he thought the team did really well in keeping the meet competitive.

“Overall for the whole team I really thought our swimmers raced really well and they stepped up,” Warrick said. “On the diving side of things I was really happy with how my divers overall did on the three meter. I was happy with how they performed against Iowa.”

Loud Crowd

Before the meet, multiple players as well as Sorenson said how loud and full it gets at Beyer Pool, as the Cy-Hawk meet is one of their most attended of the season. That didn’t appear to change this year as almost all the seats appeared to be full by either Cyclone or Hawkeye fans.

The Iowa State crowd got especially excited, with Cyclone flags waving, in the last length of the 100 yard breaststroke when Thorson and Haas overtook an Iowa swimmer to place first and second, respectively. 

“Especially in breaststroke you can hear it every time you’re coming up,” Thorson said. “You kind of know by the way your teammates are around you and the way the crowd is filling it you know it’s intense and obviously this meet everything is intense.”

The fans also started roaring in the 50 yard freestyle when every swimmer was so close any one of them could have gotten first place. It eventually went to Iowa’s Hannah Burvill, however her finishing time was only 0.76 seconds faster than the last place finisher, showing how close the meet actually was.

The Iowa State swimmers will close out the 2019 year with a trip down to Florida for their Winter Training Trip Dec. 28-Jan. 4, while the divers will start the new decade by going down to Knoxville, Tennessee Jan. 3-5 for the Tennessee Collegiate Diving Invite.