The banner that hung at the end of the pool read "They just said it would be worth it."

And that's exactly what it was -- worth it.

Not only for the three graduating women swimmers, but also for the rest of the Penn State swim team that would return next year to carry on the tradition.

The No. 12 Penn State women's swimming team carried on the tradition Saturday afternoon when they dismantled an unranked St. Bonaventure team (3-3), 142-89, sending their seniors out on a home win.

"I think we did OK," Penn State swimming and diving coach Bill Dorenkott said. "We had solid practices this week, swam some off events. Ideally I didn't want to have a meet this weekend, but this was the only time in the schedule that I could find to honor the seniors."

The three graduating seniors, Amberle Biedermann, Sarah Haupt and Patty Murphy, held true to form as each won an individual event and combined forces with junior Genie Cheng to take a first place exhibition time of 1:37.67 in the 200 freestyle relay.

The rest of the team swam well, dominating in its own pool, even though every event wasn't scored against the Bonnies.

"I like our second-tier girls in the distance events, that's a testament to the training we did in the fall, and I think it will serve them well when we drop them down in distance," Dorenkott said. "Kaitlin O'Brian's breaststroke wasn't especially fast today, but I think she put herself in a position where she will do great things."

For Penn State (6-4), competing against St. Bonaventure, a team that can be compared to recent Indiana football squads, was a nice way for the Nittany Lions to showcase different swimmers and off events.

Junior Margy Keefe, who took second place at this summer's World championships in the 5K, has taken some time off from swimming her usual distance events in order to prepare for upcoming, more challenging meets.

"It's a long season," Dorenkott said. "We started training at the beginning of September and go till the end of March. Swimming is as much mental as it is physical, and putting a swimmer in the 1,000 [meters] every meet, they are going to get a little stale. It's a nice break."

Despite being fresh off a grueling training trip, the Lions made claiming victory hard for St. Bonaventure from the start, sweeping four events and only letting the Bonnies win one.

"I think they are beat up. We've suffered our fair share of injury and illness this year," Dorenkott said. "If you would have asked me how we were at the end of the fall, I would have said that we could have been in line for the Big Ten Championship. Now, I think we need to do a few more things before I can say that."

While Dorenkott does not doubt his team's success, he knows that a plateau is customary when teams go under as much stress as they have in the last few months. Swimmers will start individualized training depending on what meets they will swim to finish out the year and to give Penn State the best shot of becoming Big Ten champions for the second year in a row.

"We were perfect vanilla the first year with our training plan; we really start individualizing things when we get back from Christmas break. We got a lot of people going in different directions, and we've already started that depending on whether you are going to the Big Tens or the NCAA Championships," Dorenkott said.

Penn State heads into next weekend preparing for the strongest Rutgers team Dorenkott said he has seen since he's been at Penn State.