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WINONA, Minn. — Mark Ross (Dubuque, Iowa), P.J. Heller (St. Cloud, Minn.), Brian Baker (Wykoff, Minn.) and Abby Kratzke (Dent, Minn.) proved to be very busy individuals for the Saint Mary's University swimming and diving teams Saturday afternoon.

Ross and Heller each collected three first-place finishes, and Baker added two to pace the Cardinal men in its dual meet against Hamline, while Kratzke recorded a first, two thirds and a fourth for the SMU women.

“It was fun to have a meet at home — and I thought both teams performed very well,” said SMU coach Eric Lindquist, whose men's squad dropped a 525-408 decision to the Pipers, while the Cardinal women were second to St. Catherine in the four-team women's invitational. “Our focus is always on the conference championships at the end of the year, but it was nice to see some of the outstanding individual performances that we got today.

“I think the home crowd got a pretty good show today.”

Heller dominated the freestyle events, winning the 50 (24.59), 100 (53.47) and 200 (1:58.60), while Ross took home firsts in the 100 and 200 backstroke (56.85 | 2:04.75) and the 200 IM (2:10.83). Ross and Heller also teamed with Garen Merritt (Sioux City, Iowa) and Jimmy Lynch (Chicago, Ill.) for a second-place showing in the 200 medley relay, where they touched the wall in 1:52.00.

Brian Baker (Wykoff, Minn.) — coming off back-to-back second-place showings at the Hamline Invitational a week ago — chipped in a pair of first-place finishes, sweeping the events with scores of 149.0 on the one-meter and 162.20 on the three-meter.

Kratzke picked up her first-place effort in the 100 butterfly, stopping the clock in 1:07.88. She was also a member of the third-place finishing 200 medley and 200 freestyle relays teams. Nikki Farmer (Medford, Wis.) recorded fourth-place times of 2:11.98 and 2:31.44 in the 200 freestyle and 200 backstroke, respectively, while Sivan Fogel (Haifa, Israel) was fourth in the 200 butterfly (2:47.40) and Kratzke was fourth in the 50 freestyle (28.75).

The Cardinals are right back in action next weekend, traveling to St. Paul, Minn., for a dual meet against Macalester on Friday, before taking part in the Macalester Invitational on Saturday.