Michael Lanz and the rest of the St. Thomas swimmers who qualified for nationals have one thing on their minds: “unfinished business.”

“As a team, I hope we come together and move up places because last year we went down,” Erin Hogan said. “We’re going to go out there and do our best and try to get the best times we can.”

St. Thomas will send six women and one man to Shenandoah, Texas, to compete in the NCAA Division III National Championships March 20-23.

The 200 medley relay team of Hayley Trace, Emily Punyko, Mariann Kukielka and Averi Splinter is seeded eighth with a time of 1:44.79.

“It’s really competitive, and very, very fast. But that makes it exciting,” coach Tom Hodgson said. “Our women’s 200 medley relay is seeded eighth, but we’re only a half a second out of fourth.”

Both the men’s and women’s teams finished second at the MIAC Championships in February. Since then, the national qualifiers have been preparing at an intense level.

“The level of training we’ve done these past few weeks have been off the charts,” Hodgson said. “We expect to go down there and compete and swim well.”

Wendy Consoer and Hogan will join Trace and Punyko in the 200 free relay. They are seeded 15th at 1:35.55.

“We’ve been focusing on the quality and technique just to make sure it’s up to par,” Trace said. “I’m really excited to have this opportunity.”

This will be the first NCAA national swimming competition for Lanz, a freshman. He will be competing in the 100 and 200 butterfly. He is seeded 15th in the 100 butterfly with a time of 49.12, and 19th in the 200 butterfly with a time of 1:50.33.

Hodgson is pleased with how his team has been preparing and expects them to do very well.

“They look really good in the water right now,” Hodgson said. “We’re going to be fast.”

The team is familiar with swimming at the national championships, something it will use to its advantage.

“It’s exciting to go back, we went last year, so we know what to expect and now we can attack it,” Kukielka said. “It’ll be a mixture of fun but also unfinished business.”

As important as competing and finishing well is to the team, Hogan said those competing are happy to swim another weekend.

“I’m just excited to be with all the girls,” Hogan said. “We’ve been really close throughout the entire year.”

Kyle Jonas can be reached at jona7984@stthomas.edu.