The Ball State University women's swimming and diving team finished the Mid-American Conference championships with its worst finish in 28 years of competing at the meet.
Ball State finished in last of the eight teams at the four-day competition.
"I hate that fact," co-coach Laura Seibold-Caudill said. "I've never been last. I've never been in eighth."
"This is something I don't want to get used to. This is something I want to change right now."
The Cardinals' top performance was by sophomore Lisa Maertin in the 3-meter diving. Senior Valerie McGowan finished 16th in the event.
Sophomore Mary Ehresman finished in the top 16 four times during the weekend, including three top 10 finishes. Ehresman finished 10th in the 400-yard individual medley Friday and then added three more top-16 finishes in the final day of competition. She finished 10th in the 200-yard freestyle, 10th in the 1,650 freestyle and 15th in the 200-yard butterfly.
"Mary, bless her heart, has just worked extremely hard," Seibold-Caudill said. "Boy she put her mind to work from the moment last year finished and it paid off."
Two of the events in which Ehresman finished in the top 16 were the Cardinals' most successful at getting athletes into the finals.
In the 200-yard freestyle, in addition to Ehresman's 10th place finish, junior Megan Ploetz finished 13th and freshman Maria Gramelspacher finished 14th. Gramelspacher finished 10th and Ploetz finished 12th in the 200-yard butterfly, in which Ehresman finished 15th.
Gramelspacher also finished 12th in the 100-yard butterfly.
Ball State also had top-16 finishes by sophomore Sarah Kehe, who finished 15th in the 200-yard freestyle, and freshman Katie Bylsma, who finished 16th in the 100-yard freestyle.
Seibold-Caudill said it's nice to know that the Cardinals had underclassmen performing well at the MAC championships.
"I think it's awesome because when can depend on those people for the next couple years," she said.
Ball State, which had finished fourth in the regular season, finished eighth at the championships with 175.5 points on the weekend. Ohio University took the championship with 679.5 points. The University of Toledo, which was undefeated in the MAC during the regular season took second. The two-time defending champion Eastern Michigan finished third while Miami University finished fourth. The host, the University at Buffalo, finished fifth. Bowling Green State University and the University of Akron finished sixth and seventh.
Ball State had no one earn conference honors at the meet, the one team that did not garner any awards.
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