ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's Aaron Taske (Fairfield, OH/Saint Xavier), who reached NCAA Division II provisional qualifying marks in five different events in the Miners' most recent competition, was named today as the PNC Swimming & Diving Athlete of the Week by the Great Lakes Valley Conference.

Taske reached B-cut marks in two distance freestyle events and both butterfly events, as well as being part of a relay team that made a national qualifying time at the Delta State Christmas Invitational prior to the NCAA Division II Winter Break. 

Taske made his marks in the 500-yard freestyle with a winning time of 4:26.79 and 1,000-yard freestyle with his time of 9:14.12, the third-best time in the GLVC this season and good for second in the meet.  In the butterfly races, Taske took second in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 1:47.86 that ranks as the second-best in the conference this year and also placed fourth in the 100-butterfly with a mark of 48.97 seconds.

The time Taske recorded in the 200-butterfly was also the fifth-fastest time ever posted by a Miner in that event.

In addition, Taske was part of S&T's 200-yard medley relay team that finished second with a qualifying time of 1:28.73 along with Mark Cavanaugh (Papillion, NE/Papillion-LaVista), Marco Flores (San Pedro Sula, Honduras/SERAN Private Bilingual School) and Chris Betts (Katy, TX/Cinco Ranch).  Taske had a time of 21.72 seconds during the butterfly leg of that relay and also posted a split of 48.09 in that segment of the 400-medley relay.

The athlete of the week award is the second for Taske in his Miner career, as he also earned the honor following S&T's appearance at Delta State's meet in 2018.