BURNSVILLE – The Southwest Minnesota State University women’s swimming and diving team was selected to finish eighth in the annual Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Swimming & Diving Preseason Coaches’ poll released on Tuesday.

SMSU is in its second season of competition since reinstating the program in May of 2018. Mustang head coach Marty Wahle has 17 athletes on the 2020-21 roster with one senior, one junior, six sophomores and nine freshmen.

SMSU earned 20 points in the preseason poll, two points behind seventh place Northern State and six points behind sixth place MSU Moorhead. St. Cloud State, the two-time defending league champion, was the top pick in the poll earning 64 points with 10 first place votes, while Minnesota State came in second place with 55 points.

SMSU sophomore swimmer Natalie Bohnert, from Petersburg, Ind., and sophomore diver, Megan Nelson, from Cokato, were both named an NSIC “Athlete to Watch” this season. Bohnert earned All-NSIC honors in both the 200 backstroke and 100 backstroke at the 2020 NSIC Championships. She placed third in the 100 backstroke with a time of 57.02 and finished second in the 200 backstroke with a time of 2:04.30. Bohnert also recorded a team best 2:10.41 in the 200 individual medley at the NSIC Championships. Nelson finished 10th at last season’s 2020 NSIC Championships in both the 1m diving and 3m diving.

SMSU finished in eighth place in its inaugural appearance at the NSIC Championship last season with 106 points.

The SMSU swimming and diving schedule for 2021 will be released in the next few weeks. The season will culminate on Feb. 10-13 at the NSIC Championship hosted by MSU Moorhead at the Hulbert Aquatic Center in West Fargo, N.D.

— Content courtesy

of SMSU Athletic

Communications