The men's and women's swimming and diving teams will walk away from this season with a lot of memorable moments and exciting races. However, their season came to a close this past weekend at the MIAC swimming and diving championships at the University of Minnesota aquatic center in Minneapolis.

The championships were held February 15-17 with the qualifiers on the 15th and 16th and the finals on the 17th. Going into the championships the Oles had high hopes with both the men and woman having strong records, the men were 7-1 and the women were 7-3.

The women were in strong contention going into the last day and the Oles knew that it was going to be close in the finals. The woman had strong performances from many of their swimmers and divers and the Oles along with Gustavus and Carleton were battling for the lead late into the last day.

Senior Chrissy Soule gave the Oles a big boost on the last day as she won the 400 IM in 4:39.57. But in the end, the Oles fell a little short of their goal of a MIAC championship as both Carleton College and Gustavus Adolphus College edged them out. The Oles ended up a very respectable third with a score of 675.5, with Carleton winning the championships with a score of 739 and Gustavus coming in second with a score of 700.5.

For the men, redemption was the name of the game as they headed to the aquatic center confident that they would reclaim the MIAC crown that was snatched from them by Gustavus last year after the Oles held it for 20 consecutive years. The Oles swam confidently in the qualifiers, but going into the final day they still trailed Gustavus by 35 points.

This did not phase the Oles. On the eve of the finals in a team meeting they "decided we were going to go out there the next day and beat them," said junior Tom Dow.

The men went out the next day and swam flawlessly in the morning putting them in a position where they would have had to "really screw it up in the afternoon to lose," said Dow. Instead of coasting to victory the men swam aggressively and "realized our preseason goal of beating Gustavus for the MIAC championship," affirmed Dow. Finishing with a score of 847.5 to Gustavus' score of 820 1/5, the Oles did just that.

Along the way there were some impressive individual accomplishments by the men's swimmers. First-year Jake Hvistendahl swam a personal best in winning the 200-meter backstroke in a time of 1:54.16, while Dow grabbed 1st place in the 200-meter breaststroke with a strong time of 2:09.01.

In winning the three-meter diving competition, senior Gabe Kortuem also put his name in the MIAC record books by shattering the former record and replacing it with an astounding score of 599.3.

Another triumphant season has come to a close and as the team looks forward to next year does anyone else wonder if the men might be starting up another streak? The women have proved that they can compete with anybody in this conference and that a run at the championships next year is inevitable.

So mark your date books now for next year's championships as the tradition of Ole excellence in swimming and diving shows no signs of slowing down.