Woodbury swimming and diving: Royals defeat Park 98-78

The Woodbury girls swimming and diving team defeated Suburban East Conference foe Park 98-78 on Tuesday, Oct. 18, before four Woodbury swim and dive members traveled to St. Thomas University on Saturday where they competed in the university’s high school diving tournament.

Against Park, the powerful Royals led 98-28 and had the meet mathematically locked up with four events remaining in the 12-event meet. Woodbury swimmers and divers finished first and second in every event and went 1-2-3 in eight events in the win over the Wolfpack.

In the final event of Tuesday’s match- the 400-yard freestyle relay- Woodbury’s Ana Sortland, Mara Miller, Kristina Swanson and Marina Rizzo took first place with a time of 3:59.33. Woodbury also finished second place in the event with a time of 4:04.51 thanks to Addie Nelson, Megan Graupmann, Kelsie Carter and Sheri Li.

The Royals also swept the 200-yard freestyle relay, with Carter helping to take first place, along with Natasha Vo, Marina Rizzo and Mikayla Mayer, in a combined time of 1:49.33. Kasey Bosch, Addie Nelson, Ana Sortland and Kristina Swanson nabbed second place with their time of 1:51.35 and third place was taken by Devan Roman, Jessica Griffin, Maddie Norsten and Kelly Tiedemann with a time of 1:53.31.

For Woodbury, Bosch won first place in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:10.89. Rizzo took first place in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 1:06.76.

Sortland grabbed first place with 5:34.91 in the 500-yard freestyle and Mayer earned first place in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 57.10. In addition, Rizzo finished in first place in the 100-yard fly with her time of 1:04.36 and Swanson finished in first in the 50-yard freestyle event with a final time of 26.25.

On Saturday, Woodbury senior Emily Bonfig, junior Lauren Puglisi, sophomore Abigail Kieschke and seventh-grader Meghan Miller traveled St. Thomas University in St. Paul for the Tommie High School Diving Invitational.

Puglisi finished in fifth place in the tournament with an overall score of 371.75. Bonfig’s final score of 446.15 placed her in third in the competition, behind second-place winner Lexi Tennenbaum of Maple Grove High School, who scored 457.30 overall, and East Ridge’s Jenna Karrow, who took first place with a score of 461.75.

Woodbury took on Cretin-Derham Hall in their regular season finale swim meet on Tuesday, Oct. 25 at Woodbury High School, after the Bulletin went to press. The Section 3AA championship meet will take place on Nov. 9 and 11, at Richfield Middle School with diving being held at Cottage Grove Middle School on Nov. 10.

Tags: swimming and diving, sports, woodbury, royals, prep