Swim & dive finishes second at NSIC Championships
The team took second place behind winner, St. Cloud State, during the three-day event
Brady Olson
Staff Writer
The Minnesota State swimming and diving team competed at the NSIC Championships from Wednesday through Saturday. Minnesota State would become locked in a battle with St. Cloud State for the entire championship, but eventually St. Cloud would emerge victorious as Minnesota State came home with a second-place finish.
The Mavericks came out firing on Wednesday, as sophomore Lily Borgenheimer finished second in the 200-yard individual medley, with freshman Katie Streiff finishing fourth.
In the 50-yard freestyle, junior Maggie Knier would finish fourth and fifth to add onto the Mavs’ team point total.
Their first win of the day came in the 200-yard medley relay, with Borgenheimer, Streif, Knier and freshman Brooke Miles winning with a time of 1:43.33. Despite the win, the Mavericks ended day one in second place, 23 points behind leader St. Cloud State.
On Thursday, Borgenheimer would again take second place, this time in the 400-yard individual medley. Streiff would find a fourth-place finish in the 100-yard butterfly, and the 200-yard freestyle relay comprised of Knier, Nikki Ault, Kayla Rinderknecht and Anja Enervold would take third place. In the 400-yard medley relay, with the same team used in the 200-IM relay, the Mavericks scored a second-place finish.
And while St. Cloud State took five of the top six spots in the one-meter dive, the Mavericks would take five-point lead over the Huskies thanks to consistency across almost all events.
On Friday, Borgenheimer would score her first individual win in the 100-yard breaststroke.
Later, in the 800-yard freestyle relay, a team of Borgenheimer, Rinderknecht, Emelia Selky and Kelly Leonard would finish in second, losing to the Augustana team by less than a second. Add in a flurry of sixth, seventh and eighth place finishes, and MSU would finish the day with a 14.5-point lead over St. Cloud State.
With third-place Augustana over 200 points behind MSU, both the Mavericks and the Huskies would have to battle out Saturday’s events for the conference title.
In Saturday’s first event, the 100-yard individual medley, Streiff came in with an impressive third-place performance, as Rinderknecht also would come in at sixth. Knier would follow with a third-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle.
The Mavericks were able to pick up a lot of points in the 200-yard backstroke, as Leonard, Enervold and Miles would finish second, fourth and sixth respectively.
Borgenheimer would follow that with a victory in the 200-yard breaststroke, but that proved to be the end of MSU’s rope. St. Cloud would go on to win the 400-yard freestyle relay, and would also take second through sixth places in the three-meter dive. After all was said and done, St. Cloud would hold off MSU by a margin of 950.5 to 902.5.
Feature photo by Samuel Oluwadoromi | MSU Reporter.