A Swimming Senior Celebration Day

MOORHEAD, Minn. (1/21/17)--- Concordia celebrated the annual Senior Recognition Meet by posting a near school record time in the 200-yard medley relay and sweeping the Top 3 spots in the 50-yard freestyle in their dual with Minn.-Morris.

The Cobbers ended up losing to the Cougars 134-102 but Concordia gave up 32 points in the diving competition as Morris had the only divers at the meet.

The eight Cobber seniors didn't have to wait very long to get excited about their special day. Concordia opened the meet by recording a season-best time of 1:57.04. The winning relay team was led by seniors Libby Hardwick and Sarah Nelson as the two helped CC win the event by over 6.0 seconds. Ann Marie O'Connell and Ciara White joined the seniors to come away with a time that was only 2.0 seconds off the school record.

The next highlight for Concordia came three events later when senior Joleen Plekkenpol won the 50-yard freestyle in a time of 27.45. Fellow senior Hardwick was second at 28.00 and freshman Lydia Larson was third in a time of 28.17.

Concordia had two other individual event winners in the meet. Alaina Dehnke swam a 5:37.58 in the 500-yard freestyle which won the event by .44 of a second. Lily Johnson and Kittleson earned third and fourth place finishes. Johnson swam a season-best time of 5:55.26 and was third and Kittleson came home in fourth place at 5:57.91.

The Cobbers' Queen of the Breaststroke Ciara White added another event win to her season total. White won the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:12.22. Her time was less than .50 seconds faster than the runner-up from Morris.

Kittleson also had a Top 3 finish in the 1000-yard freestyle. She finished third with a season-best mark of 12:10.29. Another senior celebrated her final home meet by recording a second-place finish. Katrina Teskey came home in 12:05.92 which bettered her previous season best by almost 35 seconds. Teskey's time is the fastest by any CC athlete this season.

Abbey Benson, one of the eight seniors honored during the meet, stepped into the spotlight in the 1200-yard backstroke. She placed third in the 100-yard backstroke with a mark of 1:11.08.

The Cobbers finished off the final home meet of the year by recording a time of 1:49.92 in the 200-yard freestyle which was good for second place and less than 1.0 seconds off the winning time.              
    
WHAT'S NEXT: Concordia will now hit the road for the final four meets of the year. First up for the Cobbers is a two-meet weekend in St. Paul. Concordia will swim in the Hamline Triangular on Friday, Jan. 27 and then square off against St. Catherine in a dual meet on Saturday, Jan. 28 at 12 p.m.