Swim and Dive women finish 3rd, men 4th at conference

By ANDREW HOLTAN Reporter

Seventeen school records fall on both sides

 

The South Dakota State University Men and Women’s swim and dive teams went to Indianapolis, Ind. for the Summit League Conference Championships.

The men had an overall third place finish with 563 points sitting behind Denver University and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. The women finished second with 586 points, Denver was the only team ahead of them.

Head coach Brad Erickson said, “It was an amazing weekend for us, it was a great way to end the season for most of us.”

Senior diver, Connor Florand, was the top individual for the Jacks on Saturday as he came in second in the three-meter board with 318.60 points. “Connor didn’t have his best day, his hopes were that he could win but the season isn’t over for him and he still has chance to win it,” Erickson said.

In the swimming events the Jackrabbits had three top-eight finishers in the 1,650-yard freestyle and the 200-yard backstroke. Sophomore, Chris Angerhofer, placed fifth in the 1,650 with an overall time of 16:02.98, but his 1,000-yard split of 9:33.41 set a new school record. 

The Jackrabbit men ended the meet on a positive note by setting a new school record in the 400-yard freestyle relay. The foursome of Ben Bolinske, Blake Yeager, Christopher Rumrill and Daniel Jacobson had a time of 3:01.77 to give them a third-place finish.

Senior, Emily Campbell, repeated as the 200-yard breaststroke champion with a time of 2:13.34. She was the only non-Denver swimmer to win a swimming event out of 46 that took place. “Her leadership is probably about as valuable as her swimming skills,” Erickson said.

In the 200-yard butterfly Alexandra Yeager posted a time of 2:03.49 giving her a second-place finish. She broke the school record for the 200-yard butterfly, this was the longest standing school record as the previous record was 2:05.50 set in 2009.

The Jackrabbits set a total of 17 new school records. 

“This means a lot, we lose three [athletes] on the women’s side to graduation and four on the men’s side to graduation, but we feel the group that’s coming back, the leadership that our seniors showed kind of sets the tone to the future,” Erickson said. “I think that success that we have as we recruit, people look at that and say ‘I want to be apart of that’ so each year we keep getting better and better athletes. So, I think those records will continue to be broken.”