It was a close contest, even tied after seven events, but the Albert Lea girls’ swimming and diving team couldn’t hold on and were defeated 97-87 against Rochester Mayo Thursday night.

It starts to feel like a familiar pattern, doing so well and yet still losing, but the coaches are holding out hope for the future.

“This team now will be a different team by the end of the year,” head coach Jon Schmitz said.

Every meet Albert Lea swam this season has had time improvements and personal bests.

“We had two new never-before letter winners tonight,” assistant coach Erik Johnson It was a close contest, even tied after seven events but the Albert Lea girls swimming and diving team couldn’t hold on and was defeated 87 to 97 against Rochester Mayo Thursday night. It starts to feel like a familiar pattern, doing so well and yet still losing, but the coaches are holding out hope for the future. Head Coach Jon Schmitz said “This team now will be a different team by the end of the year.” Every meet this team swims is full of time improvements and personal best swims and dives. “We had two new never-before letter winners tonight,” assistant coach Erik Johnson said, about the achievements of Hannah Hertling and Anna Anderson. “The hard work is paying off,” added Schmitz.

The meet itself held a lot of close races.

In the 200 medley relay, the team of Kemma Bergland, Lindsey Horejsi, Amy Horejsi and Galen Schulz finished second with a time of 2 minutes 1.84 seconds. The Spartans were not too far ahead in first with a time of 2:00.06.

Lindsey Horejsi ended her 200 IM in second place with a time of 2:26.30.

Schulz finished the 50 free in first place almost a second in front of Kalene Wileman of Mayo.

Amy Horejsi had a great swim in the 100 butterfly with a second place finish and a time of 1:09.47. Also in the 100 butterfly, Hannah Hertling had a spectacular section qualifying swim with a time of 1:17.09 and ending in fourth place.

The Tigers went 1-2 in the 100 free. Schulz finished first with a time of :57.03 and Bergland coming in second with a personal best time of 1:00.63. T

he Tigers couldn’t capture any more first place finishes for the evening, but they brought home a few second places.

The 200 free relay team of Schulz, L. Horejsi, Morgan Field and A. Horejsi was leading the race but couldn’t hold on finishing less than a second behind Mayo.

Karli Kriewall dominated the diving event finishing first with a score of 193.15.

Coming in third in diving was Chelsey Battle, and Makenna Friehl came in fifth with a personal high score.

The Tiger girls are in action again Saturday in Lakeville for the Lakeville Relays.