The Gophers men’s swimming and diving team rolled over Iowa State and Wisconsin, among others, this weekend while serving as ungracious hosts at the Minnesota Invitational this weekend.
Minnesota finished the weekend with 1098.5 total points. Iowa State finished second with 695, and Wisconsin — the only Big Ten team other than Minnesota to compete — finished third with 680.
“It was a great weekend,” Coach Dennis Dale said. “We had four of our top swimmers off in Brazil competing, so it made things a little closer.”
On Sunday, junior Yoav Meiri swam the sixth fastest 200 fly time in NCAA competition this year. Junior Bill Bishop captured the 1,650 long distance freestyle, freshman Chris Forrest won the 200 breaststroke and sophomore Daniel Croaston won the men’s platform dive.
“I knew I was racing really well because I could see how far behind everyone else was,” Yoav said. “But I didn’t think I raced that well. I was very surprised.”
The Minnesota Invitational is the only three-day regular season event in which the Gophers will participate.
“This was the climax of our fall season,” Dale said. “This was a great race for our freshman being in their first three-day meet. It was kind of a dress rehearsal.”

Women’s swimming
The Gophers women’s squad also won the Minnesota Invitational over Wisconsin, Notre Dame and Iowa this weekend.
Minnesota defeated the second place Badgers by almost 400 points.
Four Gophers won events on Sunday: sophomore Emily Deppe won the 200 backstroke, junior Amy Cottrill won the 100 free and sophomore Jesse Metcalf won the platform dive and the 400 freestyle relay.
Minnesota also won four events on Saturday, including junior Terri Jashinsky, who set a meet record of 54.71 seconds in the 100 fly.
The Gophers also captured the 200 medley relay, the 800 freestyle relay and senior T.D. Rowe won the three-meter springboard dive.
The Gophers captured two events on Friday: The 200 freestyle relay and the 400 medley relay.
“We were pumped for this meet,” sophomore Katy Christoferson said. “It wasn’t going to be a pushover with Wisconsin, Iowa and Notre Dame. With two Big Ten teams here, we wanted to see where we were stood.”
“We haven’t had a lot of meets this year,” coach Jean Freeman said. “If we ran more three-day meets, we would be exhausted. This team is pretty fresh and focused, and it showed. This was a great practice for the Big Ten meets.”

Another winner
Gophers junior cross country runner Rasa Michniovaite was named the NCAA Midwest Region Runner of the Year on Sunday, the first Minnesota runner ever to win the award.
Michniovaite won the Midwest Regional in Wichita, Kan. last weekend, becoming the first Gopher ever to win a regional. She also finished third in the Big Ten Championships, earning All Big-Ten honors.
Both the men and the women will run in the NCAA championships on Monday in Lawrence, Kan.