Wildcat Swimmers Reflect on a Successful Year after Third MIAC Championship Win

By Ella Tracy

The St. Kate’s swim team secured their third consecutive championship at the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) on Saturday, Feb. 18, providing many swimmers a spectacular season finale while six continue to the national championship Mar. 15-18. St. Kate’s won MIAC with 686 points, coming in first over Gustavus’s 672.

“The atmosphere at MIAC is just insane,” said distance swimmer Mia Hocking ’25 (Pre-Occupational Therapy). “It feels like a payoff from the entire season.”  

Despite the excitement, the team started off with a disadvantage of no divers and only 17 of 18 swimmers on the roster. “[Winning] was going to take every single person on the team,” said head coach Justin Zook.

The team, however, was up to the challenge. Assistant coach Nicole Hempler said that the swimmers “pushed through and they wanted it. And that showed.”  Team captain Sammi Friedrich ’24 (Exercise Science, Pre-Occupational Therapy) remembers the team deciding that “we can do this, but we have to do this for each other.”

“I wasn’t swimming for myself. I was swimming for the team,” said Nicolette Harvey ’26 (Exercise and Sports Science, Pre-Occupational Therapy). This emphasis on the team over the individual was echoed by both swimmers and coaches and proved to be the driving force of the Wildcats’ victory.

Building team spirit and camaraderie started months before the MIAC championship. Throughout the season, there was a definitive focus on team and personal growth. Harvey noted that she and her teammates had to “get uncomfortable and push ourselves out of our comfort zones.” Being part of a small team necessitates versatility, so for some swimmers, training outside of their comfort zones meant swimming events they had never done in high school or filling in gaps left by graduating seniors.

Also crucial to team building was the swimmers’ time spent together in and outside of the pool. Things like study sessions, team dinners, movie nights, off-campus activities and attending other sports games gave the team countless opportunities to bond and support each other through academics as well as their shared sport.

A unique challenge for the team this year was the addition of nine first-year students, meaning that nearly half of the team was new to the swim team and to St. Kate’s. Mackenzie Marthaler ’26 (Nursing) said that it was “harder to find my footing” in the team at the beginning of the year. But within a few weeks, the new swimmers started to fit right in. For Hocking, “coming together outside the pool definitely helped” integrate first-years into the team. “Once you recognize your role on the team and that you have a role on the team, it was easy for us to bond,” Marthaler said. “[The first-years] added so much positivity to the team!” Friedrich said.

Swimmers also focused on supporting teammates in the pool. Cheering each other on during challenging sets in practice was a major part of this support. Friedrich, who has been swimming for 13 years with various teams, said that the St. Kate’s swim team is “the only team where we cheer each other on during sets.” Swimmers attributed having more enthusiasm in the pool to the continuous encouragement from their teammates. “The team atmosphere is one of my favorite things,” Hocking said.

With another MIAC win under its belt, the team is eagerly looking forward to next season. The swimmers will take on off-season training from now through the summer in preparation. “I still want to do better,” Marthaler said. “I was proud of my time [at MIAC], but I know that with more training, I will be able to do better. I’ve come a long way and noticed that I can go a lot farther if I choose.”