Cobbers Lezak Cougars

MOORHEAD, Minn. (12/02/11)—While Jason Lezak and the USA 400-meter freestlye team might be the kings of the dramatic finish, Kirsten Anderson and the Cobber 400-yard freestyle team are now the queens of the "out-touched at the wall" finishes.

Anderson won by the mere length of a hand in the final event of Concordia's meet with UM-Morris on Friday to give the Cobbers a victory in the 400-yard freestyle relay. That win also propelled CC to a 121-120 come-from-behind win in the overall dual meet with the Cougars.   

It took a personal best by Anderson to pull off the win in the relay and the meet. She swam a "PR" by .50 of a second and helped Concordia touch the wall in 4:00.50. That was just a scant .28 of a second faster than Morris' relay team which finished with a time of 4:00.78.

While the 400-yard freestyle race was the pinnacle moment of the meet, the true highlight came from the fact that every Cobber swimmer achieved a season-best time at the meet.  

The difference in the meet for the Cobbers was their depth and diving corps. Concordia had only one individual win an event but went posted 1-2-3 finished in both diving events and had 15 top 3 finishes in the individual events.

The lone swimming win came in the 50-yard freestyle where Anderson swam a 26.10 and won by .89 of a second over teammate Alexis Philbrick. Anderson and Philbrick also went 2-3 in the 100-yard freestyle. Anderson was second with a mark of 58.47 and Philbrick was third in 59.61.

The diving trio of Molly Hansvick, Alison Hall and Cindy Moss came away with big points in both diving portions of the 1-meter event. Hansvick was first in both 1-meter events. She had a score of 148.75 in the voluntaries and 199.85 in the optionals. Hall was second in both sections. She had scores of 140.90 and 174.15 while Moss was third with marks of 102.45 and 129.90.

Emily Erickson, Hannah Winge and Greta Titus all had a pair of top 3 finishes in the swimming events. Erickson was third in both the 200-yard individual medley and 100-yard butterfly while Winge was second in both the 100-yard breaststroke and 100-yard butterfly. Titus finished second in the 1650-yard freestyle and third in the 100-yard backstroke. The other CC runner-up finishes came from Jasmine Hanson who was second in the 500-yard freestyle.

The Cobbers will finish off the pre-Christmas break portion of their schedule when they take on Northern State in a dual meet in Aberdeen, S.D. on Dec. 9 at 6 p.m.