SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - The Concordia-St. Paul swim team continues to make progress, topping two teams with an 11th place finish at the 13-team Augustana Invitational held at the Midco Aquatic Center this Thursday through Saturday.

Concordia, with 80 points, finished ahead of Iowa Lakes Community College (27) and the University of Minnesota Morris (10). The event featured a pair of Division I programs near the top of the standings led by first place South Dakota with 1,458.5 while South Dakota State placed third with 911 points.

"Each girl swam season bests throughout the meet, with some personal bests sprinkled in. The girls' hard work paid off on their fast swims this weekend," said first year head coach Rachel Busch. She continued, "Highlighting those quick swims were Farida's NCAA B cut times in the 100 Free and 200 Free. We will continue to work hard to prepare for the NSIC Championships in February."

Six of the seven swimmers competed and four different Golden Bears advanced out of the preliminaries and into the finals. Two, Farida Maher and Laura Vekony, put points on the scoreboard for the program while a pair of relay teams, the 400 medley and 200 medley, scored points for CSP as well.

Farida Maher finished third in the finals in the 200 yard freestyle with an NCAA B-cut time of 1:52.72 after advancing out of the 110 competitor field in the preliminaries. She also finished sixth in the finals after advancing out of the pool of 76 in the 500 yard freestyle, and 10th in the finals in the 100 yard freestyle following a 106 swimmer preliminary where she hit her NCAA B-cut time of 52.10. Including her fourth place run in the 1650 freestyle, Maher racked up 69 points for the Golden Bears.

The Golden Bears continue their forward trend on December 3-4 at the Macalester Invite, with another meet in St. Paul on December 11 at St. Kate's to round out the 2021 portion of the schedule.
 

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TEAM RESULTS
1. South Dakota, 1,458.5
2. Minnesota State, 1,194
3. South Dakota State, 911
4. #24 Augustana, 781.5
5. Sioux Falls, 600
6. UMary, 277
7. Northern State, 245
8. Southwest Minnesota State, 184
9. Iowa Lakes CC, 138
10. Jamestown, 113
11. Concordia-St. Paul 80
12. Iowa Lakes CC, 27
13. Minnesota Morris, 10
 

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RELAY RESULTS - 6 points
30th (33), 400 yard medley relay, 4:21.52 - 4 points
1) Maher; 2) Horn; 3) Vekony; 4) De Leon

31st (38), 200 yard medley relay, 1:58.67 - 2 points
1) Vekony 32.74; 2) Horn 31.53; 3) De Leon 29.49; 4) Maher 24.91

37th (38), 4x50 yard freestyle relay, 1:55.76
1) Maher 24.62; 2) Horn 26.57; 3) Jackson 34.30; 4) Simmons 30.27
 

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INDIVIDUAL RESULTS - 74 points
Stephanie De Leon
25th (28), 200 yard butterfly, 2:30.13

Charly Horn
28th (30), 100 yard breaststroke, 1:09.09

Farida Maher - 69 points
3rd (30), 200 yard freestyle, 1:52.72 - 20 points | NCAA B-cut time
4th (40), 1650 yard freestyle, 17:34.29 - 19 points
6th (30), 500 yard freestyle, 5:07.67 - 17 points
10th (30), 100 yard freestyle, 53.28 - 13 points | NCAA B-cut time 52.10 in prelims

Laura Vekony - 5 points
16th (28), 200 yard butterfly, 2:19.65 - 5 points
25th (30), 400 yard IM, 4:53.57