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The Wildcat swimmers and divers beat Columbia Heights 101-64 Thursday, January 10 in the Hylanders' pool.

"The guys had another convincing win despite switching the lineup all around," said Wildcat head coach Mark Nordby. "It's always an interesting meet when they swim events they typically don't get to. Some of the best races of the night were against teammates and that made it fun."

The CL medley relay, Tom McGurk, John Harwell, Doran Willis and Brody Heggerston, started things out with a come-from-behind win in which Heggerston anchored with a personal best 50 relay split of 23.90. After that win, the Wildcat swimmers won every event of the meet.

Ethan Karwand won the 200 free in a 2:11.92. "Ethan's been working on his technique during practice and will be very fast in the sprint events by the end of the season," Nordby said.

Alex Lundberg recorded a personal best and won the 200 IM with a 2:22.49 with Andrew "Ohio" Jokinen taking second with a season best time of 2:30.75. Lundberg also won the 100 fly in 1:05.61. "That was the first time Alex had ever swum the fly and ends up winning in a decent time," Nordby added.

Kevin Roggeman won two individual events by winning both of the sprint freestyle events with a 25.03 in the 50 free and 56.70 in the 100 free.

With Wildcat divers Andy Willhite and Cody Gralish out with injuries, eighth grader Mitch Gebauer won his first varsity diving event with a score of 119.00. "It took a lot of guts on Mitch's part to be the lone diver of the meet," the coach commented. "All eyes were on him throughout the entire diving competition, which is pretty unnerving. He handled it real well and had some nice dives."

Nordby added,"We'll ease both Andy and Cody back into the lineup when they are ready. Not only are they solid divers but have really been sprinting well for us."

After sweeping first, second and third in the 200 freestyle relay event, the Wildcats swam all exhibition races for the last three events of the evening. Tom McGurk and David Donahue swam the 100 backstroke with personal best times of 1:05.97 and 1:07.86 respectively.

"I was very proud of the sportsmanship the Wildcat Swimmers showed throughout the meet. The guys were very respectful of the Columbia Heights' swimmers and shook hands after each race. One Columbia Heights senior swimmer told me that, in the many years of swimming against teams from all over, he always liked swimming against the Wildcats because of the class the guys showed each year. What a great compliment for our swimmers and our district," coach Nordby added.

The Wildcats have a home swim meet at 6:00 tonight, Thursday, January 17, against Robbinsdale Cooper and head to Hibbing Saturday for the True Team Sectional Meet.

"The guys are pretty geared up to travel to Hibbing. They have a solid team and finished just ahead of Chisago Lakes at last year's True Team State Meet. Sartell is also there and have good swimmers back from their state team. It should make for a fast day of swimming," Nordby concluded.

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