Getting A Taste Of MIAC Competition
ST. PAUL, Minn. (11/16/13)— Concordia got their feet wet against MIAC competition over the weekend and came away with a second-place finish at the JoAnn Andregg Invite held at St. Thomas on Friday and then posted several quality individual performances at the Macalester Invite on Saturday.
One constant for the Cobbers during the first part of the 2013-14 schedule has been the performance of sophomore Joleen Baker. Baker recorded the most top 5 finishes for Concordia over the weekend. On Friday she finished third in the 100-yard freestyle in a time of 58.27. She backed that up with a top 5 finishes on Saturday. She swam a 26.77 in the 50-yard freestyle at the Macalester Invite and was fifth and then completed her weekend with a fifth-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle by clocking a 59:14.
There have been other several positive returns from Concordia's first-year swimmers over the opening two weekends of the season. Freshman Libby Hardwick had the top finish of the weekend when she earned a runner-up finish in the 100-yard backstroke at the UST Invite. Hardwick touched the wall in 1:02.98 which was only .24 of second behind the event winner. Hardwick was also sixth in the 200-yard freestyle (2:10.67) on Friday. Less than 24 hours later Hardwick swam to a fifth-place finish in the 200-yard backstroke in a time of 2:22.15. That time was almost 7-seconds faster than her seed time. She ended the two-meet weekend by swimming a 1:06.53 in the 100-yard backstroke and placing fifth.
Several other Cobber swimmers had top 5 finishes over the weekend. Rachel Aldinger was fourth in the 1650-yard freestyle on Friday with a mark of 20:30.52. Andrea Kittleson had several top 7 races over the two meets. She raced to a 5:51.60 in the 500-yard freestyle at St. Thomas and was fifth and had her second fifth-place finish on Saturday in the 400-yard individual medley with a mark of 5:17.58. Sophomore Megan Obrecht had her top finish on Friday when she placed third in the 100-yard breaststroke in a time of 1:15.75.
The Concordia diving crew got their first taste of multi-team invitationals over the weekend. Sophomore Jana Hedstrom reclaimed her spot as the No.1 diver on the team with top 6 finishes in both the 1-meter and 3-meter events at both meets. Hedstrom was third in both the 1-meter and 3-meter events on Friday. She totaled 150.50 in the 1-meter and then completed the high board rotation with 171.35 points. On Saturday she was sixth in the 1-meter (165.25) and then fifth in the 3-meter with a final total of 181.70.
The Cobbers will now return to smaller team competition when they participate in the St. Ben's/St. Kate's in a double dual meet at St. John's on Friday, Nov. 22 at 6 p.m.