WINONA, Minn. — Eric Lindquist knew heading into the season that depth was going to be a problem for his Saint Mary's University swimming and diving teams — in particular on the men's side, but on the women's side as well.

Yet, when the Cardinals took to the pool in their season-opening duals against Macalester last Friday, SMU's depth problems really hit home.

"Macalester took me by surprise a little — they were a much deeper team than I thought they would be, and that just kind of put our lack of depth into a whole new light," said Lindquist, whose men dropped a 99-40 decision to the Scots, while the women also lost, 128-89. "I'm already beginning to sound like a broken record, but we just weren't deep enough to keep pace.

"We got a number of good swims, but just didn't have enough people to compete with the depth that Macalester had."

Freshman Brian Joyce (Chicago, Ill.) picked up one of SMU's three first-place finishes against the Scots, winning the 200 freestyle in 2:04.84. Sean Gibson (Chicago, Ill.) chipped in a pair of second-place efforts for the SMU men, taking second in both the 50 (23.22) and 100 freestyle (52.07), while Lindsay DeLaRosby (Two Harbors, Minn.) won the 50 freestyle (27.10) and Jenny Moore (Richfield, Minn.) won the three-meter diving for the Cardinal women.

"Despite the final scores, it was a good first meet for us," said Lindquist. "We were able to shake the rust off a bit, and there were a lot of real positive things out there.

"We've still got a long ways to go, but this was a good first step."