The Carleton Swim and Dive teams put up a long, arduous and admirable fight over the course of the four-day MIAC Championships this past weekend. Both the men’s and women’s teams used every race as an opportunity to fight for themselves and their team. Their sacrifices were not in vain: Seven women and seven men were bestowed with All-MIAC Honorable Mention performances, one woman and nine men took home All-MIAC Performance titles, and, for the first time since 2016, the Knights captured an individual conference title. 

On the women’s side, Brenna Russell ’24 took third place for 3-meter diving with an astounding 388.60 points, earning herself the women’s only All-MIAC Performance. She will compete at the NCAA D-III Diving Regional Meet this weekend at the University of Chicago.

Raine Bernhard ’23 (fourth , 50-yard freestyle, 24.23), Stephanie Baranov ’26 (sixth , 400-yard IM, 4:48.56), Julia Luljak ’23 (fourth , 200-yard breaststroke, 2:24.89) and Maddie Damberg-Ott ’23, (sixth ,100-yard backstroke, 58.59), received All-MIAC Honorable Mentions.

Undoubtedly, the Knights had been putting in assiduous and backbreaking work up until this point — accounting for their impressive performance  — but Ashley Rosenberg ’25 does not discount the galvanizing energy brought by the Carleton fan section. “Electric, that’s the only word I can use to describe it,” Rosenberg said. “The energy on the pool deck was unmatched and the support from the Carleton fans meant the world.” Rosenberg won the “B” final of the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:31.23, dropping nearly a second from prelims. 

Baranov also found MIACs to be fruitful both inside and outside the pool: “My first MIACs was a very enjoyable and memorable experience. I didn’t realize how much fun I would have at this meet going into it and am so proud of how the entire team performed. It’s been a very long season and this was an outstanding way to end it!” 

Notably for the men, Ethan Tun ’25 brought home the Knights’ only first-place finish in the 200-yard breaststroke in a whopping 2:05.19. Sam Glaubitz ’24 secured a team record in the prelims of the 500-yard freestyle, clocking in at an impressive 4:37.72. 

The men’s 200-yard medley relay (Ethan Tun, Kevin Chen ’23, Aiden Guan ’26 and Josh Wu ’24, 1:33.74), 800-yard freestyle relay (Josh Wu, Ethan Tun, Ian Scott ’24 and Sam Glaubitz, 6:53.08) and 200-yard freestyle relay (Aiden Guan, Josh Wu, Ethan Tun and Sam Glaubitz, 1:25.07) all placed third. Additionally, Ethan Tun (third , 200-yard IM, 1:52.76, second in team history), Sam Glaubitz (third , 200-yard freestyle, 1:42.12), Ethan Tun (third , 100-yard backstroke, 51.78, second in team history), Hans Anderson ’26 (third , three-meter diving, 434.20 points), Ian Scott (third ,  200-yard backstroke, 1:55.79) and Teagan Johnson ’23 (third , 200-yard breaststroke, 2:07.48) took home All-MIAC Performances. 

Hans Anderson (fourth , one-meter diving, 421.65), Sam Glaubitz (sixth , 500-yard freestyle, 4:38.57), Aiden Guan (fourth, 100-yard butterfly, 50.58), Ian Scott (fifth, 100-yard backstroke, 53.02), Nicholas Chang ’26 (fifth, 200-yard backstroke, 1:56.98), Sean Smith (fourth, 200-yard butterfly, 1:57.65) and Collin Eldridge ’25 (sixth, 200-yard butterfly, 2:00.25) were All-MIAC Honorable Mention Performances. 

Will Brewster ’23, Osip Surdutovich ’23 and Aaron Banse ’25 are members of the men’s team who weren’t fast enough to compete in MIACs, but still showed up to support their teammates and bring some of the energy Rosenberg mentioned earlier. 

“Nothing short of a dream,” Surdutovich said of his experience watching the MIACs and his teammates’ earnest performances. “I agree,” said Banse, “our teammates worked hard in their races, and at one point I saw two people puking.” Brewster chimed in, “There’s no way for me to know if there really is a heaven, but if there is, it probably looks something like the Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center at the University of Minnesota. And the Carleton Knights are the angels.”