Watch: SIU’s Inspiring .5 Point Missouri Valley Champs Victory Video

2016 WOMEN’S MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Wednesday, February 17 – Saturday, February 20
• Shea Natatorium, SIU, Carbondale, IL (Central Time Zone)
• Wednesday Timed Finals 6PM, Prelims 11AM / Finals 6PM (Thurs-Fri), Prelims 11AM / Finals 4pm (Sat.)
• Defending Champion: Missouri State (8x) (2015 results and recaps here.)
• Live Results
• Live Video
• Championship Central
• MVC Teams: Missouri State Bears, Southern Illinois Salukis, Illinois State Redbirds, Evansville Purple Aces, Northern Iowa Panthers, Arkansas – Little Rock Trojans

Video courtesy Andrew Spencer. 

The women of Southern Illinois University pulled off a colossal Missouri Valley Championships upset last weekend over 8-time defending champions Missouri State, outscoring them in the team standings by a mere half point.

The video  above documents the meet, from the silent pool on the first day, all the way through the final event, the 400 free relay, which solidified the Saluki win. The songs in the video include Runaway- Gioni Remix and Big Red Machine-Bon Iver, and it was shot using a Blackmagic Pocket Camera, a DJI Osmo, a Nikon d750, and a DJI Phantom 3.

You can check out our recaps here:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4

And here’s a recap of the final 400 free relay, courtesy Shawn Klosterman:

WOMEN’S 400 FREE RELAY

1. Northern Iowa Panthers, 3:23.56
2. Southern Illinois Salukis, 3:23.70
3. Missouri State University, 3:24.35

Northern Iowa added a cherry to the top of their fantastic sprint performance in this breakout MVC meet, with a close victory in the final event.  Florman (51.12,) Phyfe (51.05,) Roepsch (51.86,) and Lembezeder (49.53) held off a Southern Illinois squad that had a lot more on the line than just this race.  SIU did what they needed– they beat the Bears.  Illinois State was 4th with 3:29.09, UALR was 5th at 3:30.03 and Evansville was 6th with 3:33.43.

The Saluki freestylers have been an incredible force all weekend, so one can only imagine that they felt they could win it all.  Defeating the Bears in this relay, no matter what place they finished, would have won them the MVC Championship for the first time in nine years.  The Bears team of Stelnicki, Kiss, Zupan and Amparano turned in a team record 3:24.35 but it was not enough to win the day.  The Salukis squad of Okaj, Avery, Walker and Handley, by taking second place over Missouri State’s 3rd, pulled off the upset by unseating the 8-time defending champion Bears for the team title by half of a point.  After all of the back and forth between the two teams over this four day grudge match, Rick Walker’s girls held strong and came through in the clutch to bring the title back to Carbondale.

FINAL TEAM SCORES:

1. Southern Illinois 799.5
2. Missouri State 799
3. Northern Iowa 627
4. Illinois State 454.50
5. Arkansas, Little Rock 305
6. Evansville 263