SAINT PETER, Minn. – The Gustavus men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams are coming off successful 2017-18 campaigns in which they both turned in second place finishes in the MIAC Championships. The squads will look to build off last seasons successes and push themselves to the top of the MIAC this year.
The Gusties return four swimmers who competed at the national meet last season with Alyssa Lokensgard (Jr., St. Peter, Minn.) Maggie Webster (Sr., Apple Valley, Minn.), and Madeline Westendorp (Jr., St. Michael, Minn.) returning for the women while Tanner Sonnek (Sr., North Mankato, Minn.) returns for the men. The Gusties received an array of all-conference honors at the MIAC Championships on both sides last year. On the women’s side Webster garnered a total of seven all-conference honors (50 free, 100 free, 200 free, 200 free relay, 400 free relay, 800 free relay, and 200 medley relay), while Haley Pesik (Sr., Eagan, Minn.) took home all-conference honors with her performance in 200 yard medley. Sophia Steinberg (So., Faribault, Minn.) led the Gustie women divers as she took home all-conference honors in the one meter dive.
On the men’s side Sonnek received seven all-conference awards (200 medley, 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke, 200 free relay, 400 free relay, 200 medley relay, and 400 medley relay) as did Nolan Larson (So., West Des Moines, Iowa) (200 medley, 100 free, 200 free, 400 free relay, 800 free relay, 200 medley relay, and 400 medley relay). Other all-conference award recipients were Josh Muntifering (So., Buffalo, Minn.) (400 medley, 200 backstroke, 400 free relay, 800 free relay, 200 medley relay, 400 medley relay), Zach Dawson (Jr., Eagan, Minn.) (400 medley, 1650 free, 800 free relay), Logan Bican (Jr., Monticello, Minn.) (one and three meter dive), and Mack Christianson (So., Cottage Grove, Minn.) (1,650 free).
On the returners, coach Jon Carlson said, “We’ve got great senior leadership on both sides and they have been setting great examples to our younger swimmers of the level of intensity we need to work at if we’re going to improve as a team. We have people like Tanner Sonnek and Caleb Torvik (Sr., Savage, Minn.) on the men’s side and Maggie Webster and Cassidy Coats (Sr., Hopkins, Minn.) on the women’s side who are really setting the tone for practice and making sure that when our swimmers leave the pool at the end of the day they’re confident that they got better.”
Last season at the MIAC Championships, St. Thomas won the conference title on both the men’s and women’s side. The Gustie men finished with a score of 759.5 which trailed St. Thomas’ score of 908, while the women accumulated 657 points to the Tommies’ 867.
“The program goal every year is to try to win the conference championship,” said Carlson. “There’s a couple of really strong teams as well as some teams that are taking some big strides so it’s going to be a battle, but we’ll do the best we can to prepare with what we have. We have plenty of talent and I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility to win the conference championship but we definitely need to improve on both the men’s and women’s side.”
The Gustavus men’s and women’s swimming & diving squads will begin their season Saturday as they will send split squads to Luther and Morningside. Both meets begin at 12 p.m.
“Early in the season we’re always trying to figure out exactly what events people should be swimming and we’re just trying to get better,” said head coach Jon Carlson. “We’ve been training for over a month so it will be nice to finally test out what we’ve been working on in practice and see how it flies in a meet. I’ve been really pleased with our training so far and it’s time to see how we compete and see where we’re at.”