Despite the end result, head coach Matt Gianiodis said he thought both teams performed well and found some positives in the loss.

“Our women are two weeks away from the Big Ten (championships), so it’s kind of tight to have a dual meet and I thought there were a lot of positives from them,” Gianiodis said.

Gianiodis said he also thought the men's team finished the season “pretty strong” and thought the men’s team performed well.

One of the men who performed well was senior Alec Kandt, who broke a pool record in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 53.45 seconds.

“Coming in, it was a pretty fast pool record … it was my final chance, final meet, it was nice to break it,” Kandt said. “I think I surprised myself. I wasn’t expecting to go as fast as I did.”

Kandt was one of seven senior men and four senior women who were honored during the senior day meet.

“I think all the seniors here swam really well for being our last meet here,” Kandt said. “It’s pretty emotional and pretty exciting.”

Senior Ben Martin said senior day is about putting a “capstone” on his swimming career at MSU.

“I just wanted to go out and have fun and swim the best I could,” Martin said. “Two out of the three races were good. … It’s a good sign to what’s going to come towards Big Ten’s.”

Senior Sarah Love said senior day is a “bittersweet” ending to her career, even with the loss to in-state rival to U-M.

“You’ve been looking forward to it for so long and then you end up kind of feeling sad at the end,” Love said. “Four years have been amazing, definitely not the best facilities, but we make do and and it’s been a lot of fun.”

Martin said he improved greatly at MSU, not only on a physical level, but also on a mental level.

“I learned a lot about myself,” Martin said “How to train differently, how to adjust to the college life, balancing athletics and academics.”

Love said her four years at MSU have made her team feel more like a family and the underclassmen should make sure to keep the family bond.

“You are family no matter what, you lean on your teammates as much as you can, make as many improvements as possible and try to come with a good attitude,” Love said.

Junior Racheal Bukowski said the senior classes have had a different impact every year, but there’s something cool with every senior class, especially the current one since she’s close to them in age.

“From the minute that we got here, they were really good leaders,” Bukowski said.

Bukowski said Love is one of these leaders who guided Bukowski from when she first starting going on her recruit trips to when she took her first step on MSU’s campus.

With Love, the rest of the senior class also created an atmosphere that suits the team, Bukowski said.

“They all made a really big impact and kind of made things easier and created an easy going atmosphere versus something that was something like, ‘I’m the boss, you'd better listen to me,’” Bukowski said.

Gianiodis said the seniors this year are important to the team and hold a lot of the team records, but also like Bukowski, they’ve the created an atmosphere he wants for his team.

“They’ve really, really created what I would consider a championship level culture relative to behaving, going to class, doing everything you need to do and then performing well in the water,” Gianiodis said.

Both the MSU women’s and men’s swimming and diving teams will compete next in the Big Ten championships, with the women set to compete in Feb. 15-18, while the men are set to compete the following week.

Gianiodis said getting a lot of rest and trying not to get sick, will be a key factor to be successful, for both squads to prepare for the Big Ten Championships.

“Our hay is in the barn, our training is done,” Gianiodis said. “We trained really hard for almost an entire calendar year. I feel pretty good about it.”