St. Joe's Wins MWAA Swimming Meet...Again

The state high school swimming and diving meet, which will be held next weekend at the St. Peters Rec-Plex is the penultimate competition for individuals from throughout Missouri.

But for the St. Joseph's Academy swim team, the signature meet of the season occurs a week earlier.

"We're not going to win the state meet as a team or have an individual win state," St. Joseph's Coach Khannie Dastgah said. "But we have tremendous depth and it shows in the conference meet. That is why we always say that conference is our meet."

And the Metro Women's Athletic Association Meet championship was the Angels again as they won the team title Saturday and did so by over 100 points.

St. Joe's won with 441 points. MICDS was second with 322 while VIlla Duchesne was third with 316.5.

The Angels won despite not winning any of the 12 events.

"At this meet it doesn't matter if you have a lot of first place finishes if you have depth," Dastgah said. "We had four swimmers in all but two of the events today and that is how you win in conference."

In several of the championship heats, the Angels had three of the eight finalists.

"I began coaching here in 2001 and the only conference meets we failed to win was my first year and two years ago," Dastgah said. "We have a group of very talented swimmers who train three hours a day, five days a week. They worked hard for this."

Junior Julia Helbig was the top individual finisher for the Angels as she was second in both the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard freestyle.

"We did not win this when I was a freshman and that was very hard," Helbig said. "I really didn't know any better then of how well we had done in the past. But this meet is the most important one of the season for us. I am going to swim the 50 and 100 at state and a couple of relays and am excited about that. But for most of the girls on the team this is their last meet and we really wanted to win."

There were a pair of meet records which were broken Saturday and both were by MICDS relay teams.

Annie Goessling, Masha Podokshik, Christine Jackson and Trey Ross set new conference meet marks in the 200-yard and 400-yard freestyle relays.

The foursome had a time of 1:42.03 in the 200-yard freestyle relay. The previous record was 1:42.56 set by St. Joe's in 2004.

The meet ended in exciting fashion as three teams actually broke the previous best mark in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Goessling, Podokshik, Jackson and Ross won with a time 0f 3:40.74. That shattered the previous best time of 3:47.69 set by Westminster Christian in 2007.

The win in the final event gave the Rams a narrow second place finish over Villa Duchesne.

"It was a very exciting end to the meet and I was very happy with the way the girls swam unrested today," MICDS Coach Kristen Kaiser said. "I am really looking forward to next week. We will put the fast suit on them and let them fly."

Goessling had an outstanding meet for the Rams as she was part of the two record-breaking relays as well as winning a pair of individual events. She won the 200-yard IM in 2:11.31 and the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:08.87.

Morgan Mullenix led a good showing by Villa Duchesne Saturday. Mullenix won a pair of events. She won the 50-yard freestyle in 25.06 and the 100-yard freestyle in 54.67.

Bentley Boldt and Sarah Sutherlin were also Saints who won individual events, both doing so in very close fashion against MICDS'  Ross.

Boldt won the 100-yard butterfuly in 1:01.40. Ross was second in 1:01.83. Sutherlin was victorious in the 100-yard backstroke in 1:02.04. Ross swam a 1:02.14.