It was an emphatic win for the Cyclones, as Iowa State defeated South Dakota 212-84 Friday night.

The Cyclones swimming and diving team maintained a strong lead throughout the whole meet, both in swimming events as well as diving.

Iowa State didn’t let up once, not letting South Dakota within 30 points once they proved to take a commanding lead after Keely Soellner took first in the 200 yard freestyle to put the Cyclones up 45-10.

The sidelines are always full of the athletes from both teams cheering for teammates as they swim as well as laughing and goofing around, but when it comes time for their event, the athletes were raring and ready to go. 

“The team had a lot of fun, they were enjoying themselves,” said head coach Duane Sorenson. “They got locked in when [it was] their time to race and compete and I thought we did a lot of little things taking care of business.”

Sorenson had some of the swimmers compete in events they normally wouldn’t, but that didn’t appear to deter them as the Cyclones placed first in every event tonight, including relays and diving.

“We challenged a number of our swimmers to swim in different events,” Sorenson said. “And some of our second, third level swimmers to step up against their swimmers and I thought we did a really good job of taking that challenge on.”

One of those swimmers sophomore swimmer Lucia Rizzo. Normally racing the 200 butterfly or 200 freestyle, she swam the 500 and 1,000 yard freestyle.

“She’s a very versatile swimmer, we can swim her in eight different races,” Sorenson said. “She’s very solid and we can always depend upon her.”

Rizzo said she used to do the 1,000 more, but doesn’t swim it so much in college.

“It’s an event I used to do a lot,” Rizzo said. “I was excited to do it again this year, I did it a little bit last year, it was good to just do it for the first time this year.”

Rizzo finished first in the 1,000 yard freestyle with a time of 10:43.31 and placed first in the 500 yard freestyle with a time of 5:12.68.

The divers also had a strong meet, placing first and second in the 3 meter diving and first, second and third in the 1 meter diving.

“It was a really good performance by the divers,” said diving coach Jeff Warrick. “They were pushing each other.”

Senior Dana Liva placed first in the 3 meter dive and third in the one meter dive. Freshman Jayna Misra placed second in the 3 meter dive as well as the 1 meter dive, and sophomore Michelle Schlossmacher Smith placed first in the 1 meter dive.

All three divers also earned a score to qualify them for the NCAA zone qualifying score in the 1 meter dive.

“It’s a good thing to have the three get the zone cut score” Warrick said. “[South Dakota’s] diver today she placed fourth and also made the zone cut score.”

The Cyclones will face off in their second meet of the weekend against Rutgers Saturday at 10 a.m. at Beyer Pool.