It wasn’t quite what the NIU swimmers and their coach had hoped for, but they couldn’t complain either.

The Huskies had set their sights on a blue ribbon at the Midwest Independent Championships held Thursday and Friday at Illinois Chicago but ended up with a third place finish, scoring 519.50.

Southwest Missouri State was the tourney champ with 739.0 followed by Western Kentucky’s 531.0. Other scores included Northeast Louisiana, 377.0; UIC, 372.5; Oral Roberts, 306.0; Western Illiois, 294.0; Northern Iowa, 187.5; Bradley, 169.5; Eastern Illinois, 147.0

While it would have been a sweet victory to place first, NIU coach Dave Clark said he was glad to see his team improve from last year’s fifth spot.

“Other than the first morning, we swam really well,” Clark said. “I think we probably tried too hard (Thursday morning).”

The Huskies got off to a slow start on Thursday with a low third place at 119 points, just ahead of Northeast Louisiana at 111. However, NIU did break some school records and accomplished something the team had never done before.

In the 200-yard butterfly, the Huskies swept all five spots, and temporarily took second place. Andy Flodin won the event with a 1:52.32 mark. Dave Talbot finished second with a 1:52.98 time and Mike Godstead grabbed third with 1:54.30. Bill Zolna and Todd Klumb took fourth and fifth with times of 1:55.39 and 1:57.15, respectively.

Four school records were set in the 200 and 400 medley relays and in the 200 and 800 freestyle relays. In the 200-yard freestyle, Art Sanchez, Randy Faherty, Klumb and Talbot set a new record of 1:26.37 for a second-place finish. The old mark was 1:24.57 set at the Wheaton Invitational.

NIU took second in the 800-yard freestyle. Steve Sanders, Faherty, Klumb and Talbot broke the old record of 6:55.27 with a 6:52.47 mark.

Curt Streder, Pat Egan, Flodin and Talbot won fourth place in the 400-yard medley, but their 3:30.09 time broke the old time of 3:30.57 set in 1982. In the 200-yard medley, Streder, Egan, Flodin and Klumb set another Huskie mark of 1:36.90, wiping away the 1:39.02 time set in December by Streder, Paul Moniak, Flodin and Klumb.

“We’ve got a lot of different names on the records now, including many freshman,” Clark said “We swam as well as we could.”