The Alexandria boys' swimming and diving team competed in their first ever Minnesota Swim Coaches Association True Team State Meet this past weekend at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center in Minneapolis.
"The True Team philosophy is based on the idea that every team member's performance counts towards the team's score in competition," explained Cardinals' head coach Mark Storhaug. "First place is to be worth as many points as the number of possible entries in the event. Each school may enter up to four individuals and four relay teams per event."
Meets were held at the Section level last weekend using the MSHSL section alignments. Alexandria was among seven other Class AA Section True Team winners and four "Wild Card" teams. Even though the 8AA True Team meet was canceled because of the weather, the Cardinals advanced to state by vitue of seed times.
"(We) placed 11th in the Class AA State Meet Saturday," Storhaug stated. "But were not intimidated by all the Twin Cities' teams."
Alexandria compiled a total of 1,021 team points. Edina won the team title with 2,084 points.
Ben Vogeler and Sam Vinje lead the Cards with two top 16 finishes. Vogeler was 11th in the 50 Free (22.64) and 9th in the 100 Free (50.12). Vinje was 13th in the 200 Free (1:53.36) and 15th in the 100 Free (51.46).
Other individuals cracking the top 16 were: Dylan Johnson who was 13th in the 100 Breaststroke (1:04.29) and Aaron Rooney who was 5th in diving (319.30 points). The foursome of Jon Schwegel, Bennett Freitag, Johnson and Ben Vogeler earned 13th place in the 200 Medley Relay (1:46.19). The team of Chris Vogeler, Freitag, Vinje, and Ben Vogeler claimed the 9th place spot in the 200 Free Relay. Chris Vogeler, Freitag, Vinje, and Rooney combined for 16th in the 400 Free Relay.
Alexandria had 36 individual performances slated for the contest and 18 ended up being a season best. Dylan Johnson, Phil Golde, Austin Biskey and Ben Vogeler all had two improvements each. Among the best of the bests were from Dylan Johnson who dropped 2.2 seconds in the 200 IM and 2.1 seconds in the 100 Breaststroke. Freshman Aaron Pietrowski seemed undaunted by the competition as he lowered his 500 Free time by six seconds.
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