Coming home from an incredible weekend at the Mid-American Conference championships, the Bowling Green swimming and diving team is feeling great about their performance.

The team’s third-place finish, the highest since 1993, showed signs of big things to come for the Falcons.

“We shocked a lot of people with our performance,” said Kara Ohngren, who finished sixth in the 1,650 freestyle. “No one expected anything like that from BG. I think we even shocked ourselves, and we really stepped up.”

BG improved on last year’s performance, even though they headed to this years championship with half the amount of swimmers from a year ago.

“Last year we were sixth in the MAC, so moving up to third place was a huge improvement for us,” said Stephanie Buckner, who finished eighth in the 100-yard freestyle.

“I think it was a great ending to the year,” said Caroline Keating, who placed ninth in the 1,650 free. “We knew we could do it all along, but it’s tough, and to finish the year the way we did makes us more excited for next year.”

The Falcons were sparked on the final day by senior co-captain Sarah Agnew, who won the 200-yard breaststroke, becoming the first Falcon to win a MAC event since 1996. In her last competition for BG, Agnew went out a champion.

“It was absolutely amazing, and I couldn’t have asked for a better way to finish my swimming career,” Agnew said.

Agnew was battling an ankle injury coming into the event, which prevented her from even warming-up for the breaststroke, but she refused to let the injury affect her race.

“[BG head coach] Keri [Buff] told me not to think about it,” Agnew said. “She just said to be tough, and I could do it, so it’s what I tried to do, and it worked.”

“[Sarah] was amazing,” Keating said. “It was the highlight of our week. She’s been training real hard all year and definitely deserves to finish her last race as a BG swimmer and come out on top.”

The team attributed most of their success to their guidance under Buff.

“[Keri] has only been here for two years and she has changed the program so much,” Ohngren said. “We’ve worked harder under her, and she’s turned us around.”

Said Buckner: “When she came here, we were a young team and not really known at the MAC because of where we were before she came. She’s really brought the program up and made BG noticeable in the MAC.”

The MAC swimming championship was won by host Miami University, followed by Ohio University and BG.