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St. Cloud State University
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Huskies leap into new season
By Kevin Macdonald
Published:
Monday, November 1, 2004
Media Credit: Nick Hanson
A member of the SCSU diving team practices a dive for competition last week at Halenbeck Hall Pool. The women´s swimming and diving teams competed in a meet against Northern Michigan, sweeping them in the process 174-69 Friday and 161-78 Saturday.
The SCSU women's swimming and diving team jumped into competition this weekend, posting a two-day sweep of a dual meet at Northern Michigan University and having three divers qualify for the National Championships.
The Huskies officially opened their season Friday night by winning 11 of 13 events to defeat the Wildcats 174-69. SCSU continued its strong showing Saturday by taking 10 events to beat NMU 161-78.
"This was an outstanding start to the season," SCSU head coach Jeff Hegle said. "A majority of our women this weekend were swimming times that we were not expecting this early in the year."
Friday's swimming competition consisted of the shorter events which are mostly 100-yard races of all the strokes.
The Huskies were led by junior swimmer Jackie Vieau, who won the 200-yard freestyle in 1:58.09 and the 100-yard freestyle in 0:54.64. Hegle said that he was impressed with Vieau's showing.
"Those (times) almost equaled her best times of last year," Hegle said.
The Huskies also had winning performances from senior Tennyson Anseth, juniors Alise Amial and Kristin Otterson, sophomore Brenda Peters, and first-year swimmers Laura Seidenkranz and Melissa Eggleston.
The 200-yard medley and 200-yard freestyle relays also took gold, while junior diving captain Sara Steffen won the three-meter diving with a score of 272.25.
"We really went out there hungry, and we did what we wanted to do," Steffen said. "We have a very strong group of swimmers this year, so we'll be marking our territory."
The Huskies continued to be solid Saturday afternoon in the longer events. Vieau again won two competitions, while swimming captain Danielle Breunig did the same by winning the 50 and 100-yard freestyle. Otterson, Eggleston, and first-year swimmer Caitlin Digney won events, and the 400 yard medley and 400 yard freestyle relay teams swam to victory as well. Sophomore Kendra Willis also won the three-meter diving with a score of 265.00.
This year's sweep marks the second time in as many years that SCSU has taken both days of competition against NMU.
The win was not the only good news for the Huskies on the weekend, however. Three divers qualified for the NCAA Division II National Championships in March. Steffen, Willis and Sarah Nielsen all became eligible for the competition that takes place in Orlando, Fla. during spring break.
"We knew they would qualify for nationals, we just did not think that it would be this soon," Hegle said.
This marks the third year in a row that Steffen has qualified for the tournament. Last year, she finished 13th overall, while Nielsen placed 10th. This will be Willis' first time competing. Steffen said that their goal this year is to place within the top eight divers.
"It is nice to be qualified already this season, so that we can work on other aspects like the degree of difficulty, and focus more on the harder dives," Steffen said.
In diving, competitors only have to attain a qualifying score once throughout the year to be eligible for nationals.
After arriving at the tournament, divers must re-qualify for their event on a day called Black Tuesday, when they have to finish among the top 16 divers in order to compete. The qualifying scores for the one-meter and three-meter dives are 245.00 and 255.00, respectively.
Both the men's and women's swimming and diving teams will be back in action Saturday, when they host the SCSU Invitational at Halenbeck Pool. Although the meet will include a number of schools from around the region, Minnesota State University-Mankato will be the only other NCC school competing. This is because, unlike other collegiate athletics, swimming and diving teams are not required to compete against other conference teams throughout the season. The only time that all NCC schools will meet is at the Conference Championships. This year's NCC tournament will be Feb. 16-19 at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
"Everything that we do throughout the year is focused on our conference meet and our national meet," Hegle said.�
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