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Concordia poses for a picture after their meet at St. Catherine. The Cobbers had several season-best times and won the 400-yard freestyle relay.
Concordia poses for a picture after their meet at St. Catherine. The Cobbers had several season-best times and won the 400-yard freestyle relay.

Season-Best Success At St. Kate's

ST. PAUL, Minn. (2/26/21)---Concordia put up a boatload of season bests as they split its two dual meets to start the final weekend of the season. The Cobbers beat Augsburg 108-51 but fell to host St. Catherine 108-51. The Wildcats won the MIAC Championship in 2020.

Concordia, who will swim in their last meet of the year on Saturday at Minn.-Morris, got event wins from freshman Rachel Andersen in the 1000-yard freestyle and the 400-yard freestyle team. CC also had Top 3 finishes from senior Anna Backes and junior Alexandra Rasmussen.

Andersen won the 1000 free by dropping over 30 seconds off her previous season-best time. She won the event with a time of 12:08.55 which was 32-seconds faster than her fastest time in 2021. Andersen also swam the 100-yard backstroke for the first time in her collegiate career and posted a seventh-place time of 1:11.15.

The Cobbers finished the met in style by winning the 400-yard freestyle. The quartet of Backes, Camille Gunderson, Jessica Bray and Rasmussen clocked a 3:51.15 which bettered the previous team best of the season by 23 seconds. Rasmussen swam a 56.12 in the anchor leg which was faster than her time at the MIAC Championship Meet last year.

Rasmussen also recorded a time faster than last year's conference meet time in the 50—yard freestyle. She touched the wall in a season-best time of 26.00. Rasmussen also competed in the 100-yard backstroke and finished in sixth at 1:06.88.

Backes had a pair of Top 3 finishes. She was second in the 200-yard freestyle and third in the 500 free. Both of her finishing times were season bests. She dropped 8-seconds off her best time in the 200 with a mark of 2:02.76. She followed that up with a 5:38.04 in the 500 free which was an 8.95 second drop off her top time of the year.

Sophomore Kaitlin Cramer narrowly missed a Top 3 finish in the 100-yard backstroke. She recorded a PR time of 1:06.26 which was a scant .54 of a second off of third place and .59 of a second from the runner-up spot.  

Gunderson recorded two lifetime personal records at the meet. She swam a 27.51 in the 50-yard freestyle and came home in 59.26 in the 100-yard freestyle.           

UP NEXT: Concordia will finish off their 2021 season when the compete against Minn.-Morris on Saturday, Feb. 27 at 1 p.m.

RECAP SPONSOR: Tonight's recap sponsor is Sanford Orthopedic Sports Medicine. If you want to be like the Cobber swim team and post a lot of season best marks, see the awesome professionals at Sanford Orthopedic Sports Medicine and they will get you in top shape. Sanford Orthopedic has been the official Orthopedic specialists for Concordia athletics since Joe Christianson was playing basketball for Norman County West HS.