Oct. 21, 2006
St. Peters, Mo. -
Up against tough competition, Illinois State swimmers and divers were able to place second with a score of 108 at the meet hosted by Lindenwood University Saturday afternoon. The meet, which featured Illinois State, Saint Louis, Lindenwood and Rose-Hulman, was held at the Rec-Plex and allowed many individuals to shatter season best times.
Though four teams were present to compete, it was Illinois State and Saint Louis (132) who battled back-and-forth for first place. Head coach Steve Paska knew the competition was going to be tough entering the meet, especially racing against Saint Louis who has a current 40 dual-meet winning streak in progress.
"It was definitely a close meet today," said Paska. "You have to give Saint Louis credit because they swam well and dove well. I was very impressed with how Illinois State competed; unfortunately, we came up a little short."
Though Illinois State wasn't able to edge out Saint Louis in the end, there were a number of individual swimmers who were able to set new season bests. Christine Steinbach, Jamie Haseman, Catharine Danenhower and Lisa Hanrahan led the team with outstanding performances, which resulted in individual bests for the season.
Both Steinbach and Haseman swam in the 200 and 500 freestyle races. Steinbach set a new season best for herself in the 200 freestyle (1:57.2) and 500 freestyle (5:11.85), while Haseman did the same with a 1:57.4 in the 200 and a 5:11.79 in the 500.
"Saint Louis ended up winning the 200 and 500 freestyle races," Paska said. "In the 500 freestyle both Christine and Jamie were leading the whole way, and Saint Louis ended up touching them out by 15-hundredths of a second. Those top-three finishes show you how close the competition was between us and Saint Louis."
Also setting season bests were Danenhower in the 100 backstroke with a time of 1:01.95, and Hanrahan in the 100 butterfly with a time of 1:00.47
"Today was a very competitive setting," Paska said. "We are trying to swim with consistency and get faster each and every week. I think we definitely took a big step this weekend. Hopefully we can keep this momentum going for the upcoming week."
The Redbirds will continue the season when they bring competition back home to Horton Pool this Friday, Oct. 27. The meet will begin at 5:00 p.m. against in-state rival Illinois.
