Nanatorium heavyweights Matt Stewart and Carrie Gunderson return to the pool to lead Gustavus

Gustavus’ Swimming and Diving team has been the cream of a very competitive MIAC crop in recent history,  and the men have won eight of the past ten conference championships, including last season. On the other side, the women have won four of the past seven titles, and have won back-to-back crowns coming into 2008-09.

“I think we have a really great team this year swimming wise, but also personality wise and to compete for conference we need both to be a great team.  It’s going to take a lot of hard work at practice and dedication to compete for conference champs this year, but I think our team can accomplish this,” said Junior Jonna Berry. “Like our coach Jon Carlson says “be a flamer, not a rain cloud” and this team is very good at being “Flamers.”

Both squads began the season with the “Ted Mullin Hour of Power” held in honor of the late Carleton swimmer to help raise awareness for cancer and its long-term effects. Together, swim teams across the country raised $43,000 in this event last year and this November there were 100 participating schools—over 50 more than last year.

“We have to keep working hard everyday. We return a lot of strong swimmers but we also lost a couple very strong individuals to graduation. While their personalities will be missed and hard to replace, we will be looking to the new [first-years} and transfers to step up in the Gustie way,” said last week’s MIAC Men’s Swimming and Diving Athlete of the Week Senior Matt Stewart.

“There are many people who are looking extremely good this early in the season and if we can keep it up we will make it a great battle against St. Olaf for the conference title.”

The Gusties lost their first meet, a dual against Minnesota State-Mankato this past Friday. Stewart had two first place finishes for the men, one in the 200-yard freestyle and the other in the 100 yardbutterfly, while Junior Skylar Davis (500 yard free) and First-year Josh Beaburg (1000 yard free) came home with the only other first place finishes.

Sophomores Whitaker Davis and Sophomore Paul Kirihara had second place finishes each in the 200 yard freestyle and 100 yard backstroke respectively. Gustavus was outscored 133-103 in the meet.

For the Gustie women, only one swimmer took home a first place finish. Sophomore Anika Erickson finished first in the 100 yard breast stroke while Juniors Emily Allex (1000 yard free) and Carrie Gunderson (500 yard free) and First-year Allyson Hanneman (100 yard backstroke) finished second. Berry finished third in the 100 yard backstroke as did First-years Steph Korba and Dajana Vidovic in the 100 yard butterfly and 100 yard freestyle; respectively.

Another substantial obstacle for the Gusties will be replacing the All-Conference swimmer Christie O’Connor, who transferred to the University of Minnesota after spring semester of last year. O’Connor holds the school record in the 200 yard backstroke.

“She was an amazing swimmer and a great teammate …and she … swam her hardest at every practice and meet and she inspired many people to overcome their struggles and swim their hardest,” said Berry.

This weekend, Gustavus heads to the St. Kate’s Invitational on Friday night only to travel to Northfield the following day for a dual against St. Olaf. The following weekend, the Gusties go to the St.John’s/St.Ben’s/Bethel Invitational.

“I am not disappointed at our loss from Mankato. It was the first meet of the season and it was really a starting off point to see where we are at,” said Gunderson. “Mankato is a division 2 team and they have been training longer than us so I was not disappointed at all. I think everyone did a great job and now that we have one meet under our belt we can really focus on our St. Olaf Dual.”