**Note: Although we originally reported that the Missouri State men had a one-point win over Drury, a scoring error was caught. The Drury men won by one point over Missouri State.
Springfield, Missouri rivals NCAA Division I Missouri State and Drury University, whose women and men were recently ranked second and seventh in the NCAA Division II by a CSCAA poll, faced off last night at Drury’s home Breech pool.
The Drury women took the win in the final event, the 200 free relay, to cinch a close victory 117 to 114, while the Drury men swept first and second in the same relay for a 112-111 victory over Missouri State.
The first relay, the 200 medley, went to the Drury women and the Missouri State men. Drury’s Wen Xu‘s 22.97 anchor leg was the deciding factor that gave her and her teammates Vera Johansson, Zuzanna Chawadeczko, and Abby Lunzmann a 1:46.80 victory over Missouri State’s 1:47.57. Missouri State men Uvis Kalnins, Isaac Springer, Artur Osvath, and Brenden Bolman finished in 1:30.81 to Drury’s 1:32.51 to grab 11 relay points.
Both winners of the 1000 free took big victories over second place; Drury’s Megan Oul finished the event in 10:17.31 to second-place’s 10:25, and Missouri State’s Minki Kang clocked 9:16.20 to beat out second by over 10 seconds.
The Missouri State women and Drury men won their first victories of the night in the 200 free. Bears Rebecca Amparano and Sydney Zupan swept first and second with 1:53.23 and 1:53.92, respectively, while Drury’s Daniel Rzadkowski won the men’s event in 1:38.65.
Xu grabbed another decisive victory in the 50 free, finishing in 23.39, while second-place Loretta Stelnicki swam a 24.19. Drury men Rodrigo Caceres (20.23), Aaron Buckingham (20.56), and Walter Ross (20.90) swept first through third, grabbing 16 points for their team.
The women’s 200 IM was a close race between Panther Gretchen Stein and Bear Josie Pearson. After a dead-even 50 fly (26.60 for both), a 30.79 backstroke leg ended up being the deciding factor in Stein’s 2:04.01 win. Pearson finished in 2:04.19. Kalnins grabbed a huge win in the men’s 200 IM, clocking 1:50.09. His teammates Christopher Heye and Nicholas Theunissen finished second (1:53.32) and third (1:53.88), effectively canceling out the Drury 1-2-3 finish in the 50 free.
Drury swept the diving events (Missouri State does not have a men’s diving team), with Rebekah Laupp winning the 1 meter with 260.84 and the 3 meter with 287.70 . Ethan Okazaki won the 1 meter with 166.65 and the 3 meter with 202.12.
The Missouri State women grabbed first through third in the 100 fly, with all three Bear swimmers finishing within a quarter of a second. Pearson grabbed her second win of the night with 57.02, followed by Dora Kiss‘s 57.13 and Amparano’s 57.27. A Missouri State man also won the men’s 100 fly; Osvath clocked a 48.53 to edge out Drury’s Stanislav Kuzmin‘s 48.77.
Xu continued her domination with 50.15 in the 100 free, winning the event by 2.6 seconds, and her male Drury teammate Rzadkowski also grabbed his second individual win with 44.42 in the event.
Zupan won the 100 back for the Missouri State women with 57.55. Aidan Glynn and Alex Shiemann swept the top two spots for Drury’s men with 51.53 and 51.65, respectively.
Missouri State grabbed wins in both 500 free events, with Kiss edging out Drury’s Oul 5:02.33 to 5:02.99 and Ethan Bresette and Kang taking first and second in the men’s event with 4:31.09 and 4:31.20, respectively.
Osvath added his third win of the night in the 100 breast in 54.43, while Drury’s Chwadeczko took the women’s event in 1:03.55.
The 200 free relay was the deciding factor in the women’s competition. Although the Missouri State women were able to take both second and third place, with 1:37.77 and 1:40.10, the Drury team of Janice Poon, Madeline Nelson, Johansson, and Stein clocked 1:36.63 to secure 11 points and a three-point victory.
The Drury men grabbed both first and second place in the final relay, with Rzadkowski, Buckingham, Ross, and Caceres finishing first in 1:20.27, and their ‘B’ team finishing in 1:24.90. The Drury men took the dual by one point, 112-111.
The real post meet story on this nail biter is Missouri State University Coach Dave Collins reviewed the results after the meet and noticed that his Men went 2-3-4-5 in the 200 free which is not allowed by NCAA rules. Only the top three places from each team can score in individual events. He and his assistant scored the meet out several times finding the error resulting the two point swing in Drury’s favor. He called the Drury Head Coach Brian Reynolds, his former College coach, and informed him of the scoring error later that night. What a great show of sportsmanship Coach Collins showed by doing this. This is an Incredible example of integrity shown by Coach Collins as… Read more »