The Lindenwood men and women’s swimming and diving teams traveled to Crawfordsville, Indiana last week for their first ever Great Lakes Valley Conference championship, where they earned individual tickets to the NCAA National Championship.

Over the course of four days, the Lions competed against other GLVC schools like McKendree, Drury, Truman State, Bellarmine and the University of St. Louis – Missouri. On the women’s field, the Lions earned a third place with a total combined score of 1599, while the men finished fourth with a total of 1233. The fourth day was the best for the Lions as they broke a school record and achieved 27 personal best times, according to Lindenwood Athletics.

Beata Maruszczyk, a freshman swimmer from Poland, earned GLVC Freshman of the Year and earned the most points of all of the freshmen in the competition, totaling 102. Maruszczyk also finished second in the 200 breaststroke.

Junior Leticia Rodrigues from Brazil finished third in the 1650 freestyle, while Jana Hellenschmidt, an All-American in the 2018-2019 season, finished the event in fifth. In the 100 freestyle, senior Kamila Kunka finished the competition in third place, and Stephanie Marks finished fifth in the 200 backstroke. The women’s 400 freestyle relay team finished third with a time of 3:26:53.

On the men’s side, Maxime Eekhof led the Lions by finishing in first in the 200 breaststroke with a time of 1:59:13. Angel Regalado finished in third place in the 1650 freestyle; right behind was Niels Engeln in fourth. In the 100 freestyle, Patryk Winiatowski from Poland finished in third while Zach Linder finished in fifth. Melker Olsson finished third in 200 backstroke. The men’s 400 freestyle relay team finished in third with a 2:59.10.

While some of the Lindenwood swimmers have concluded their season, others still have some work to do as they have qualified for the NCAA National Championships in Geneva, Ohio, starting on March 11.