With 49 students on the roster, almost everyone at Macalester College is bound to know someone who spends their mornings and evenings in Riley pool, doing laps, dives and visualizing their strokes while everyone else showers and gets ready for the day. Led by Head Coach Kyllian Griffin, the Macalester men and women’s Swim and Dive team boasts an impressive 2023/24 season, breaking numerous records and emerging victorious at many meets.
This success bodes well for the big meet next week: the 2024 MIAC championship, which takes place Feb. 14-17 at the University of Minnesota. The team is aiming to place high this year, hoping to repeat last year’s place in the top three and bring home individual victories in multiple races.
“We have spent the last five months becoming [better swimmers], and MIACs will be our opportunity to show off who we are!” Assistant Coach Wilson Josephson wrote in an email to The Mac Weekly.
In addition to winning races, the possibility of making the NCAA championships is another motivator for swimmers racing at the U of M next week. Every year, the top 20 swimmers in the country compete nationally in the Division III championships. Last year, Skye Schmit ’26 traveled to Greensboro, North Carolina to compete in the 200-yard, 500- yard and 1650-yard freestyle. The sophomore is once again gunning for a spot and is currently only 1 second away from a qualifying time.
As a whole, this season has seen both team and individual successes. The women’s team started off with a win against Carleton, a team that, before last year, Macalester had historically fallen to. The meet was undoubtedly close, finishing 149.5-146.5 but showed the team’s growth in the past year.
Another major success was the most recent meet, which occurred on Jan. 27, when Macalester met Grinnell. Although it ended in a loss, with the Pioneers scoring 144 points to the Scots’ 129, the meet finished the season with numerous individual accomplishments. Adam Schroeder ’25 and Claire Stretanski ’27 both took first in
the mile, moving Stretanski up to 9th place in the MIAC for the 1650-yard free. Additional wins came from Schmit taking first in the 500-yard freestyle and second in the 200 and Emma Henry ’26 winning both the 100 and 200-yard backstroke.
During midseasons, at the Roger Ahlman Invite hosted by Macalester, the women’s team placed 1st out of 4 teams from Division III and the men 1st out of 9, two exciting home pool victories. Most notable, however, was the show put on by Thomas Moore ’27. Moore not only swam to first place victories in three individual events, but set school records in all three races in addition to breaking four more in relays with teammates Casey Meretta ’26, Charles Batsaikhan ’25, TJ Palli ’26 and William Haby ’27. The Scots took five other wins, bringing their total to 854.5, almost 200 points ahead of St. Olaf College, who sat one place below them.
The Gustavus Adolphus College’s Grace Goblirsch Invite brought along similar victories for the Scots, especially for Izzy Uhlhorn-Thornton ’26 who won four individual events: the 100 and 200-yard breaststroke, the 100- yard butterfly and the 200-yard medley. The Macalester women’s team ended up placing 2nd in the meet, scoring ahead of Saint Benedict and Morningside and behind Gustavus themselves. Jocelyn Radke ’24, captain of the team alongside Will Nicholson ’24, Brian Pryzby ’24 and Isabel Capecci ’24, says this season’s success is especially notable. “When I came to Mac, we were pretty close to the bottom of our conference, but [last year] we got third place [at the MIACs and] I think we would love to be [there] again,” Radke said.
Josephson says these wins come from the team’s skill and enthusiasm to practice and push themselves.
“They are decidedly not underdogs in this conference anymore,” he wrote. “I think this team feels about winning the way a golden retriever might feel about a peanut butter sandwich: no expectation or entitlement, but a deep desire and a willingness to work for it.”
As the Macalester swim and dive team enters into the final week before MIACs, nerves are high but tensions are noticeably low. It’s
clear that even though swimming can be a very individual sport, there is no lack of team support regardless of success or failure.
“We have a really close team,” Schmit said. “At the end of the day, if you aren’t doing great, you just cheer for each other.”
Josephson recognizes this attitude as well.
“I think — I hope — that no one on our team really thinks about winning as an individual endeavor,” he wrote. “If an athlete wins an individual event at MIACs this year, it will be because of thousands of small moments of camaraderie and teamwork during their time here.”
