Travis KriensSportswriter

In the final home dual of the season, the South Dakota State women’s swimming and diving team broke two school records in defeating the University of North Dakota 171-129 at the Stanley J. Marshall HPER Center Friday night, while the men lost 139.5-158.5.

The women won 13 events on the night, with Erin Eagen setting a new school mark in 1-meter diving. Eagen’s score of 252.45 points won the event and was nearly five points better than the school record that she set last season. She was also less than 2.5 points away from breaking her school record in 3-meter diving.

“I don’t know the last time we won a diving event against North Dakota,” said head coach Brad Erickson, who is in his 35th year.

Alexandra Hoffman and Stephanie Young each won three events on the night, including teaming up with Ashley Valdez and Jessica Ferley to open up the meet with a winning time of 1 minute, 49.54 seconds in the 200 medley relay.

Ferley’s 50 backstroke of 27.96 seconds to lead off the relay set a new school record. She went on to sweep the backstroke events, with a 100 backstroke of 59.02 seconds, a 200 backstroke time of 2:07.29, and a winning 400 IM finish of 2:13.68.

Hoffman went on to win the 50 freestyle (24.59 seconds) and the 100 freestyle (53.43 seconds) for her 53th career victory. Young swept the breaststroke with a time of 1:08.01 in the 100 and a 200 breaststroke finish of 2:26.97.

Valdez also had an individual win coming in the 100 butterfly, with a time of 59.18 seconds.

Emma Wright won her second 200 butterfly of the season with a time of 2:12.50.

Andrea Budahl rounded out the women’s dominant win with a 1000 freestyle time of 10:29.07, less than a second off the school record, and a victory in the 500 freestyle in 5:09.85.

“I told the women after the meet that, to my recollection, it’s probably the first dual meet victory over North Dakota since before any of them were born,” Erickson said. “It was a great meet to be a part of and to see how well we performed.”

Back in October, the Jackrabbit women lost 194.5-97.5 to UND in Grand Forks during their season opener. Young was the only swimmer to win an event.

“We just swam a lot better, said Erickson. “It’s not so much what has happened to North Dakota. It’s the things that we have done to change and improve.”

The SDSU men didn’t have quite the same success the second time around. They defeated UND 161.5-138.5 in October when Chris Schreier burst onto scene with four wins and two school records to start off his college career.

Erickson changed some things up in the opening 200 medley relay by not having Schreier take part and also changed the 1000 freestyle lineup.

“We didn’t feel they (UND) were particularly strong in backstroke and, looking at the first two events, we thought we could change our lineup and still win those events and it backfired on us,” Erickson said.

“The old sayings, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas. It could have been different, it might not have been. Those are things I told the team after the meet that I will take the blame on.”

Schreier won two events, with the most impressive coming in the 200 butterfly. The freshman won in 1:51.96, just 0.39 seconds away from breaking his school record. The next closest swimmer was over 11 seconds behind. Schreier also won the 100 butterfly in 52.42 seconds for his 20th win of his spectacular freshman season.

Freshman Phil Albu swept the backstroke events as he won the 100 backstroke in 53.82 seconds and followed that up with a 200 backstroke time of 1:58.29.

In the 200 breaststroke, sophomore Shea Patrick placed first, clocking in at 2:11.87, and in the 500 freestyle, sophomore Kyle Ochsner claimed the 19th win of his career with a time of 4:51.51.

Next week, the Jacks are in Minneapolis for the two day Minnesota Challenge starting at noon on Friday and at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

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