The Alexandria boys' swimming and diving team was at St. Cloud Tech this past weekend, competing in the 2010 Section 8AA Swimming and Diving Championship Meet.

 

The Cardinals took home silver, placing second among the seven teams.

 

Brainerd won gold, as they successfully defended their title, with 409.5 points.  Alexandria earned 339 points to finish ahead of Elk River (316).

 

"The contest was the area's State qualifying meet, as well," explained head coach Mark Storhaug.  "The top two finishers in each individidual and relay race, plus the top four divers advanced to the State Championships next weekend."

 

The Cards scored 28 times which included 12 individual top-eight finishes.

 

Scoring twice in the medal rounds were Sam Vinje (2nd-200 Free-1:49.83, 3rd-100 Free-50.05), Jon Schwegel (6th-200 IM-2:10.33, 6th-100 Back-58.46), Dylan Johnson (8th-200 IM-2:14.74, 3rd-100 Breaststroke-1:04.05), and Ben Vogeler (2nd-50 Free-22.62, 100 Free-2nd-49.82).

 

Other solo individual medalists were Aaron Rooney (3rd-diving-380.95 pts.), Bennett Freitag (4th-100 Fly-56.30), Kris Aaseng (5th-500 Free-5:19.66), and Elliot Jacobson (8th-100 Breaststroke-1:08.90).

 

The Cardinals also scored three relays.

 

The team of Rooney, Chris Vogeler, Vinje and Ben Vogeler won the 200 Free Relay (1:42.13).  The 200 Medley Relay Team of Schwegel, Johnson, Freitag, and Ben Vogeler combined for a runner-up finish (1:31.77).  The team of Vogeler, Freitag, Schwegel, and Vogeler were 5th in the 400 Free Relay (3:28.32).

 

The Redbirds shaved nearly 65 seconds from their seed times during the course of the two day meet, improving in 30 out of 33 attempts.

 

The biggest improvements came from Spencer Jacobson, who chopped off four seconds in the Fly, Freitag took off 3.3 in his Fly race, Austin Biskey was over two seconds better in the Fly, while Matt Sheets cut 3.5 seconds in the Butterfly.

 

Also coming up big was Phil Golde dropping 14 seconds in the 500 Free, Elliot Jacobson taking off 2.5 second drop in the Breaststroke, and Ben LeVahn slicing 3.4 seconds in the 100 Breaststroke.

 

"The Cards will bring seven team members down for the State Meet at the University of Minnesota Aquatics Center next weekend," Storhaug added.

 

Alexandria will compete in the 200 Medley and 200 Free Relays.  Competing individually will be Sam Vinje in the 200 Free, Ben Vogeler in the 50 Free and 100 Free and Aaron Rooney will represent the Cardinals in Diving.

 

Diving preliminaries will take place Thursday night.  Friday night, the prelims for the swimming races will be held. On tap Saturday is the finals for both swimming and diving events.

 

All of the Class AA activities are slated for 6:00 p.m. on each of the three days.