DECORAH, Iowa - It's been nearly a month since the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota swimming and diving teams had competed-dating all the way back to the two-day Jean Freeman Invitational on Dec. 4-5.
At that meet,
Grace VanBeest (Flossmoor, Ill.) shattered a pair of school records in leading the Cardinal charge.
And when the Cardinals returned to the pool for the Luther Invitational Saturday afternoon, VanBeest was once again leading the way.
VanBeest collected a pair of top 5 finishes-placing second in the 100 breaststroke and fourth in the 50 breaststroke-to spark the Cardinal women in the non-team-scored event, while Joe Tonda's (St. Paul, Minn.) seventh-place showing in the 100 breaststroke and top 10 efforts from Lucas Gerads (St. Cloud, Minn.) and Brian Mockler (Dubuque, Iowa) fueled the Cardinal men.
VanBeest stopped the clock in 1:13.20 in the 100 breaststroke en route to her second-place finish, while touching the wall in 33.96 to place fourth in the 50 breaststroke.
Reese Galewski (Winona, Minn.) posted a pair of top 10 showings in the 100 butterfly (sixth, 1:04.45) and 50 butterfly (seventh, 28.58), while
Chloe Morrison (Ashkum, Ill. ) chipped in a sixth in the 1,000 freestyle (12:21.96) and an 11
th in the 500 freestyle (5:54.50), and
Caroline Hoffman (Chicago, Ill.) notched an 11
th in the 100 breaststroke (1:24.65). Ailie Davison (Duluth, Minn.) and
Kierra Walske (Rochester, Minn.) placed 10
th and 11
th, respectively in the one-meter diving with scores of 361.75 and 293.30, while
Shelby Peterson (St. Paul, Minn.) added a ninth in the 3-meter diving with a 306.05 point total.
Tonda posted a time of 1:06.41 in placing seventh in the 100 breaststroke, while also adding an 11
th-place time of 28.12 in the 50 backstroke. Gerads raced to a time of 58.23 to place eighth in the 50 breaststroke and Mockler chipped in a ninth-place time of 31.02 in the 50 breaststroke.
The Cardinals return home to the Jul Gernes Pool for the next two Saturdays, hosting the Saint Mary's Alumni Open on Jan. 23, and the Saint Mary's Invitational on Jan. 30.
