ST. PETER, Minn. – The Gustavus Adolphus College women’s swimming and diving team placed second place out of seven teams at the Grace Goblirsch Invitational that was held Saturday at the Vic Gustafson Pool. The Gusties tallied six first place finishes on the day, along with three second places to conclude the meet with a team score of 1,000, 219 points behind first place finisher Minnesota State University-Moorhead.
“The women had a great meet,” said Coach Jon Carlson. “We had a lot of fun battling with MSU-Moorhead. They certainly outswam us, but I was very pleased with how we raced. We had a number of breakthrough performances and that doesn’t usually happen at this part of the season. However, we had plenty of them today, and the team is excited going into Thanksgiving break and then the Jean Freeman Invite at the U of M.”
Haley Pesik (Fy., Eagan, Minn.) and Kate Reilly (So., Hastings, Minn.) each tallied two gold medals on the day. Pesik finished first in the 1650 free and the 200 free, while Reilly had her success in the 50 and 100 frees. Hayley Booher (Jr., Warren, Vt.) also had a strong showing for the Gusties, as she notched two second place races in the 400 IM and the 200 breaststroke.
“Haley Pesik had an outstanding meet for us today with a couple of first place finishes and Kate Reilly brought it like she always does,” said Carlson. “I think where our strength really showed today was in our depth. The people right behind our top swimmers performed very well, dropped a lot of time, and are starting to figure things out with all of the turns and starts, the things they need to do in order to be an elite collegiate swimmer.”
Saturday’s race honored the memory of former Gustie swimmer Grace Goblirsch who passed away on August 23, 2013 after fighting a courageous eight-month battle with acute myelogenous leukemia.
“We still talk about Grace a lot on our team to this day,” concluded Carlson. “One of the best things she gave our program was consistently being a good teammate and to look for fun in every situation possible. Swimming is one of those sports where, if you don’t have something to complain about, you just need to wait five minutes and something will come up, but Grace never looked at it that way. You can see the impact she had on our current team continue to ripple through from those who knew her, to our younger swimmers who didn’t have the opportunity to meet her, and that’s a really cool thing. It was a great meet today – it was massive, it was loud, and it was fun – and I know Grace would have had a blast today.”