COLUMBIA, Mo. - During day one of the Mizzou Tiger Invite, North Dakota's women's swimming and diving team came away with 12 top 20 finishes, including three in the top 10.
North Dakota currently sits in third place with 308 points. Host Missouri leads with 857.5 points followed by Drury with 341 points. Boise State is in fifth with a score of 242 and Kansas is fifth with 214 points. Rounding out the nine-time roster is North Texas (188), Saint Louis (180), Missouri S&T (147.5), and UC Davis (136).
"What a nice start to the meet for both the men and the women," head coach Steve Parsons said. "The team came out with a lot of energy. We had a lot of great swims in the morning to earn us a lot of second swims in the evening session."
UND opened up the evening's finals with an eighth-place finish in the 200 free relay. The 'A' team of freshman Rachael Wessman (Fargo, N.D.), sophomore Alyssa Bailey (Spearfish, S.D), sophomore Kelsey Richels (Wahpeton, N.D), and junior Veronica Medon (Huntsville, Ontario) clocked in at 1:35.97, just .49 seconds behind seventh-place Mizzou.
The lone swimmer in the 500 free finals, sophomore Morgan Lynch (Elk River, Minn.) finished in 20th place with a time of 5:02.12.
Medon cut a full second off of her prelim time in the 100 fly (57.55) to finish in 11th place with a time of 56.50, and senior Caitlin Conci (Craig, Colo.) took 21st with a time of 57.22 (56.81 prelim).
In the 200 IM, Medon was once again UND's top finisher. She placed 16th with a time of 2:05.67 after swimming a 2:07.38 in the preliminaries. Freshman Erin Grabanski (Grand Forks, N.D.) took 31st with a time of 2:10.57 (2:10.06 prelim).
"Veronica had a phenomenal first day," Parsons said. "She did great in her individual events and then was a big help in our relay events."
UND's top finisher in the 50 free, Wessman finished 16th with a time of 24.29 (24.09 prelim).
To close the swimming events, the 400 medley relay team of Medon, sophomore Camille Merwin (Aliso Viejo, Calif.), Conci, and Richels took 13th with a time of 3:51.24.
In the lone diving event of the day, senior Megan Keidel (Bismarck, N.D.) led the team with a seventh-place finish on the 3-meter with a score of 218.75 (231.85 prelim). Sophomore Rachael Waldbillig (Lexington, Minn.) finished 10th with a score of 277.35, sophomore Alexis Thomsen (Chisago, Minn.) placed 16th with a mark of 198.40, freshman Cassidy Tangeman (Shakopee, Minn.) took 18th (193.90), and freshman Jennifer Anklan (Rochester, Minn.) finished 22nd (178.90).
"We had some unexpected people step up for us tonight," Parsons said. "We were expecting something out of them, but they surprised us by doing even better than what we had anticipated. Overall, it was a great start and we're looking forward to more fast swims and high scores tomorrow."
- Go Sioux -
