Photo by Sam Thiel Marshall’s Brooklyn Gossen leaps off the diving board during their meet against St. Peter on Thursday. Marshall defeated St. Peter 108-78.

MARSHALL — The Marshall girls swimming and diving team has been patiently waiting for their first taste of competition this season, as its original season opener against Montevideo was canceled due to Montevideo moving to distance learning.

The Tigers finally jumped in the water against St. Peter and made a splash to start their season, as Marshall rolled to a 108-78 victory over the Saints on Thursday evening on the campus of Southwest Minnesota State University.

Marshall coach Nikki Axe-Bell said they’re just extremely thankful for getting the opportunity to finally compete, especially with each day of their season being an uncertain one.

“We’re just full of gratitude. I watch my email every day and worry every time I see something from our athletic director as to what’s new because we’ve already lost the two meets off of our schedule to Montevideo and it’s so hard to get people to come out to Southwest Minnesota,” Axe-Bell said. “We’re so thankful that St. Peter was able to travel and stay healthy and we got to have a real meet.”

Axe-Bell added that because of the rules set by the Minnesota State High School League of limiting roster size, they really need to have multiple athletes step up and compete in several events and felt like they did a great job in their first meet.

“We’re super tiny, our total roster is at 21, With the Minnesota State High School League guidelines at 25, during the summer, we knew it wasn’t going to be a year for growth and we all became one pod,” Axe-Bell said. “I have two new seventh-graders that really shined and swam up to some varsity events, Grace Rokeh and Autumn Deutz, and we’re still kind of lean-and-mean. We had some good versatile people like Alli Kopitski who can swim in distance free and in IM’s and Hailey Brandt is the same way. Kaylie Stucke also swam the 50 free and the 500 free and did what we needed to do and won those events, so just having versatile athletes is what helped us.”

In the 200-yard medley relay, the Marshall team of Mansi Bell, Maddie Larson, Hailey Brandt and Stucke took first with a time of 2:01.12 while the team of Alex Larson, Holly Netzley, Kopitski and Reagan Brandt took fourth with a time of 2:14.21. In the 200-yard freestyle, Marshall’s Tera Johnson took second with a time of 2:18.21 while Rokeh took fourth with a time of 2:19.96 and Alex Larson took sixth with a time of 2:30.19. Marshall then took the top three spots in the 200-yard individual medley, with Hailey Brandt (2:23.33) placing first, Maddie Larson (2:27.81) taking second and Emma Beavers (2:34.62) placing third.

In the 50-yard freestyle, Marshall’s Clara Bader took first with a time of 26.71 seconds while Stucke took second with a time of 26.96 and Alana Condezo took fourth with a time of 28.01. In the 1-meter dive, Reagan Brandt took first with a score of 154.30 while Bader took fourth (137.95) and Brooklyn Gossen took sixth (124.75).

In the 100-yard butterfly, Hailey Brandt took first with a time of 1:02.55 while Condezo took third with a time of 1:07.41 and Mansi Bell took fourth with a time of 1:09.54. In the 100-yard freestyle, Johnson took second with a time of 1:02.38 while Rokeh took fifth with a time of 1:04.64 and Netzley took sixth with a time of 1:05.15. In the 500-yard freestyle, Stucke took first with a time of 5:37.98 while Kopitski took third with a time of 5:51.07 and Reagan Brandt took fourth with a time of 6:07.94.

In the 200-yard freestyle relay, the team of Maddie Larson, Beavers, Condezo and Bader took first with a time of 1:50.60 while the team of Johnson, Larson, Brandt and Netzley took third with a time of 1:57.59 and the team of Deutz, Rokeh, Elizabeth Coudron and Gossen took sixth with a time of 2:01.05.

In the 100-yard backstroke, Bell took third with a time of 1:09.81 while Alex Larson took fifth with a time of 1:11.63 and Kopitski took sixth with a time of 1:11.98. In the 100-yard breaststroke, Beavers took first with a time of 1:15.20 while Maddie Larson took second with a time of 1:15.48 and Netzley took sixth with a time of 1:25.71.

Finally, in the 400-yard freestyle relay, the team of Stucke, Condezo, Bader and Hailey Brandt took first with a time of 3:57.79 while the team of Bell, Kopitski, Beavers and Johnson took third with a time 4:15.13 and the team of Gossen, Coudron, Deutz and Rokeh took fifth with a time of 4:30.72.

Up next

Marshall will compete next with a familiar opponent, facing St. Peter again on Sept. 22 at 6 p.m. in St. Peter.