St. Joe, MICDS Have Startling Results At State Swim Championships

The 37th annual state swim meet is in the history books, and area teams had their golden moments.

Mary Institute Country Day School had its best finish since the 2009 season when they finished fourth.The Rams swam to a third-place team finish with 160 points. Columbia Rock Bridge harvested the gold with 213 points; Springfield Glendale was second with 182.

The other big story came in the 200 yard freestyle relay. The St. Joe Angels came from out of nowhere to nail down the championship with a time of 1:38.22. Second was Glendale in 1:38.53.

The MICDS Rams piled up a breast stroke title by senior Annie Goessling and some strong relay performances for the third-place finish.

There were smiles all around.

The Angel relay team, Jenna Osterholt, senior; Grayson Ram, freshman; Grace Stiegemeyer, sophomore and Julia Herbig, senior were gleeful with joy.

Earlier in the meet, Herbig was disqualified in the 100 freestyle for jumping the starter’s gun. That was her redemption.

Herbig was swept up with the excitement. “I was disqualfied in the 100, it was great to come back and win that relay. I feel like we’re on top of the world.”

Osterholt felt the same way. “This is my last year. I’m going to the University of Dayton, but not for swimming,” she revealed.

“I’m just a sophomore,”said Stiegemeyer, “I’m so happy for our seniors.”

Annie Goessling was a happy camper too.

Her swan song resonated throughout the Rec Plex in St. Peters. She won the 100 yard breast stroke in 1;05.51, took second in the 200 yard individual medley in 2:04.74; swam anchor on the third-place 400 yard freestyle relay (3:35.20) with Trey Ross, Masha Podokshik and Christine Jackson, and led off the 200 yard medley relay which took ninth in 1:50.42. That combo was Goessling; Hadley Edwards, Lily Reisinger and Ross.

“I”m so excited. I want to do this well since the ninth grade. Now, I’m ready to move on.” She will concentrate on the breast stroke and the IM at the University of North Carolina. “My mom went to the University of Virginia. She couldn’t talk me into it. I always wanted to be a Tar Heel.”

MICDS coach Kristen Kaiser was drained from the experience. "We lost to Villa by one point in the conference meet. St. Joe beat us by 14 points in a dual meet. I told our team we just needed to hang in there, and we did," she said.

Team wise, Villa Duchesne was eighth with 105.5 points; St. Joe finished ninth with 92.5 points. Ladue was 24th with 32 points, John Burroughs 26th with 24 points.

Area teams picked up some second place finishes. Madison Qualy of John Burroughs finished second to Goessling in the 100 yard breast stroke (1:05.60), closing out her high school career.

“I’m really happy how it finished up. I have a lot of friends and coaches on the team who pulled for me.”

Morgan Mullenix of Villa Duchesne, heading to the University of Denver went out in a blaze, taking second in the 100 freestyle in 52.42. Maddie Wall of Ladue, going next to Dartmouth was third in the 200 yard freestyle in 1:52.75 and took seventh in the 500 yard freestyle in 5:07.37, five seconds off her qualifying time.

Senior Bentley Boldt of Villa was fifth in the 100 yard butterfly (57.86) and junior Trey Ross of MICDS was sixth in 58.82.

In the 50 yard freestyle, Mullenix took fourth (24.10) and Herbig and Boldt tied for fifth at 24.11.

MICDS divers added 27 points towards the team’s third place finish. Kat Friese was third; Nealy Wallis, eighth. (see diving article).