Freshman Emily Punyko tied for 14th place in the 100 breaststroke Friday at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships in Indianapolis and earned honorable mention All-America honors. Punyko also competed in Saturday’s 200 breast prelims but missed the finals.

On Thursday, senior Jennifer Easton placed 12th in the one-meter dive. The Tommie women scored 7.5 points to place 47th.

The lone St. Thomas men’s entry on Saturday, the 400 free relay, missed the 16-team cutoff for the finals with a 3:09.06 time. Freshman Nathan France, sophomore Max Hubbard, sophomore Ben Henrickson and junior Sam Rauchwarter comprised the relay.

On Thursday, the women’s 400 medley relay finished 18th out of 25 entries in the prelims.

Sophomores Hayley Trace and Erin Hogan and freshmen Punyko and Mariann Kukielka clocked 3:58.25, barely missing the 16-team cutoff for consolation finals.

After the race, Trace said the result was “a bit disappointing” because the team was originally seeded 14th coming into the day. However, she also noted there were some positives from the race too.

“Emily Punkyo had a lifetime best, and she did amazing. We’re all really proud of her,” Trace said. “It’s just more about the experience. To make it to nationals is really cool, and the whole opportunity was really awesome. Just because we didn’t swim as fast as we would have liked to today, we’re still really proud of our accomplishments throughout the entire season.”

Kukielka also said she was disappointed with results, especially because of how well the other MIAC teams have fared.

“We had such a great end to our season… we thought we would continue to do better at nationals,” Kukielka said. “I guess our five-week training in-between conference and nationals just didn’t keep us at the level that we ended conference with. Of course we supported them, but seeing Gustavus and St. Olaf do so well when we all had the same five-week time… and we beat both of them at conference… it was just upsetting. We’re just wondering what we did wrong and what we can do better next year.”

Trace, Hogan, Punkyo and Kukielka also competed Wednesday in the 200 medley relay and finished 20th of 31 entries.

“We were excited because we moved up yesterday. We were 25th coming in,” Hogan said.

Hogan said the main takeaway for the young relay team was the experience.

“We’re going to come back next year and be even better,” Hogan said. “Being at a national championship swim meet was kind of intimidating. None of us have ever experienced such a different venue, such a different experience. Now we have the first jitters kind of out of the way. I’m hoping and planning to come back and make more of an impact next year.”

Rauchwarter and Henrickson competed for the men on Wednesday. Rauchwarter finished 33rd out of 35 in the 500 free prelims, and Henrickson finished 39th out of 49 in the 50 free prelims.

Ryan Shaver can be reached at shav7005@stthomas.edu