It was a good day for the River Falls Swim and Dive Team on Saturday in Minneapolis where the University of Minnesota hosted an invitational that featured many of the best programs in the area.

Caitlin Brudzinski, head coach of the Wildcats, said they always like coming here because the atmosphere is so electric and infectious, but this year especially due to the results.

“We had 12 season best swims, and every athlete who swam had at least one,” Brudzinski said. “Seven of those season best times were also personal best times for those athletes.”

Freestyle swimmer Mickey Baar was one of the swimmers who set their personal best - a high achievement for a fourth-year varsity swimmer.

“I think compared to other meets lately, today was a lot better,” Baar said. “I managed to drop in time from events that I swam literally just the other week, so that was pretty exciting. I also got a personal best today.”

All in all, it was a good day for Wildcat swimmers. Elise Gulick took fifth out of 49 swimmers in the 200-meter freestyle and seventh in the 100-yard butterfly out of 46 swimmers. Rachel Everson also took second in the 1-meter dive out of 33 divers.

For those who don’t know, the 1-meter dive is exactly what it sounds like, except it’s a spring board event. Judges start by looking at their starting position, their approach, the takeoff, how they look in the air in that flight position, their entry into the water and their overall impression of the dives, and the judges are giving those scores out pretty much instantaneously right after they go in.

For Baar, she took 15^th in the 500-meter freestyle out of 46 swimmers, though her personal best time was in the 200-meter individual medley, which is a race where swimmers compete in all four strokes in one race (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle) with each leg being 50 meters in length.

Coach Brudzinski said their record at meets doesn’t accurately reflect the high level of talent on the team or how well their athletes are performing individually.

“Today we had nine athletes swimming, and we have our two divers. Eau Claire Memorial and Hudson each have close to 30 athletes, if not at least 30 athletes, which means when you look at the results, it looks like we got destroyed,” Brudzinski said. “At our competition at Memorial, we had someone place first or second in nine of the 12 events, and then third in the other three. We can compete with their athletes, but we don't have the numbers to compete with their teams.”

The Wildcats’ team numbers seem to ebb and flow with the excitement surrounding the Summer Olympics, according to Brudzinski.

“Swimming is not a sport that most people walk into, especially with girls. If they haven't been doing it, they’re not necessarily going to come out and try it,” Brudzinski said. “Our roster kind of goes along with how the local club goes, and the local students in the clubs kind of go in a cycle. After the Olympics, everything gets really high, and then it slowly starts to dip until we hit another Olympics. This is the last year before we have our Summer Olympics, so it'll be interesting.”

For those athletes who don't have a background in swimming, Brudzinski said there is definitely a learning curve, and it starts with technique and safety.

“Once we get technique fairly solid, we can start building on endurance,” Brudzinski says. “The issue comes in when technique gets sloppy as athletes get tired. We don't want any athlete, but definitely not new athletes, to injure themselves with poor technique because their muscles aren't used to swimming.”

Once they get beyond those opening stages though, athletes can contribute right away to their varsity squad. Even beginners can have a huge impact on how their team performs.

“Typically, our new athletes begin with freestyle and backstroke, and they start racing the shorter distances, the 50 and 100. On a smaller team like ours, even new athletes can contribute,” Brudzinski says. “One of our girls on varsity this year, this is only her second year swimming. She did one full year with club swimming in the off season, and then high school swimming in the fall, and she should continue to contribute points in the events she swims. In a dual meet, first through fifth place score in individual events, and those fifth-place points can sometimes be the difference when it's a close meet. If swimmers stick with it, we'll start working on the other two strokes as they are able.” 

The Wildcats swim and dive season continues this week with a meet in Rice Lake at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday.