by Jack Metz for the Sports Information Office

RESULTS

The women swimmers and divers finished their season much like the men with a fourth place finish with 342.7 points, coming up short of Morningside College's 349 third place mark, Lindenwood University with 683, and Luther who came out on top with 802 points, capturing its sixth consecutive Liberal Arts Championship.

"Luther is our toughest competition," said coach Doug Colin.

"Lindenwood have been strong for a while and they have an advantage of offering many scholarships, but it could be their last year in our competition as they move away from a NAIA school and into Division II."

The women had a total of nine duals finishing the season with a record of 6-3, 1-2 finishing third in the Iowa Conference.

"We were hoping to finish higher than we did, particularly on the women side where we had we some points we left at home, unfortunately," said Colin.

Despite the result the team was still able to garner impressive races from their swimmers, including the veteran fixture on the team, senior Alex Proctor.

"She has been invaluable for the last four years," said Colin. "She managed to pull out a win this weekend even though she fought an injury bug all year with a shoulder problem."

Proctor's victory came in the 50-yard freestyle with a finish in 24.76 seconds, edging out the competition by .15 tenths. She added a second place finish in the 100-yard freestyle in 54.03 seconds, missing victory by .07 tenths and a fourth place finish in the 100-yard butterfly at 1:00.62, three seconds off of the leader.

The women set a Loras record in their 200-yard medley relay finishing fourth with a team of Proctor, sophomore Abbey Tjebkes, sophomore Katie Callaghan, and first-year Jillyn Gerken. Other notable performances by the women came from junior Gabby Gaulke who placed fourth in the 200-yard butterfly and sophomore Katie Callaghan who placed sixth in the 100-yard butterfly.

"We have a very good core group returning next season," said Colin. "Hopefully with another good recruiting class we will be just as strong or stronger next season. Even though we are graduating some record-setters, I would not say we are rebuilding."