The early portion of the swimming and diving season for Iowa was mainly a training mechanism to get ready for the championship stretch.

The months of intense practice and hard work showed last week as the Hawkeyes had their best showing of the year at the Minnesota Invitational.

The four-day event that ended on Saturday yielded historic times for both the men’s and women’s teams. Multiple swimmers posted season-bests, career-bests, and even school records in Minneapolis.

On the first day of competition, the men and women turned in season-bests in both the 200-medley relay.

Hannah Burvill collected the first of her two school records at the competition on the second day of the meet. She broke her own record in the 50-free in the preliminary round, touching in 22.54 and swam only .02 seconds off that time in the finals.

Seven other swimmers, Allyssa Fluit, Mateusz Arndt, Daniel Swanepoel, Ryan Purdy, Steve Fiolic, Will Scott, and Aleksey Tarasenko, captured career-best times in individual events.

Iowa athletes continued to post personal bests on the third day in Minnesota at the Jean Freeman Aquatic Center.

Millie Sansome, Will Myhre, and Aleksandra Olesiak, all posted times for the record books.

Sansome posted a career best in the 400 IM finals, touching in a time of 4:17.68 — good for third all-time in program history.

Will Myhre swam the 100-breast in 53.22, the third fastest time ever at Iowa.

Olesiak moved to sixth in school history when she tallied a 1:02.39 in the women’s edition of the 100-breast.

RELATED: Iowa swim/dive heads to Minneapolis for Minnesota Invitational

The fourth and final day of the Minnesota Invitational was, by a large margin, the best day of competition for Iowa this year.

Among other impressive achievements, Kelsey Drake, Sansome, and Burvill all set school records on the last day of competition.

Drake took Iowa’s 200-fly crown with a time of 1:58.18. The previous record was 1:58.28 held by Becky Stoughton. Drake now holds both the 100 and 200 school records after the invitational.

Sansome took over the record in the 200-back, setting the new mark at 1:56.31. She bested the old record by .18 seconds.

Burvill posted Iowa’s third school record of the day and her second of the week in the 100 free. Like the 50-free, the senior again broke a record she had set in the 100, shattering her previous mark of 48.94 and touching in a time of 48.65.

Many of the Hawkeyes impressive times this week qualified them for NCAA ‘B’ cuts.

At the end of the four-day invitational, the Iowa women finished seventh ahead of Nebraska with 254 points, just behind Harvard with 282 points. The Hawkeye men placed fifth with 250 points, ahead of Minnesota (235) and Harvard (171).

California won the women’s meet followed by Texas in second. For the men’s meet, those two schools swapped spots at the top of the leaderboard.

Up next for Iowa is a women’s dual meet on Dec. 13 in Ames against Iowa State.