WOMEN:

Truman State and Drury entered the last day of the NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships tied for the team lead - and thanks to getting the lead early in the night, Truman State went on to reclaim its spot atop the nation.

The Bulldogs, who saw their string of six straight national titles get halted by Drury last season, got a second place finish from Molly Polette in the 1,650-yard freestyle to start the night and ended it with a strong second place finish behind Nebraska-Omaha in the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, to wrap up its seventh national championship in the last eight years.

Kristen Frost of Southern Connecticut State, who beat Polette in the 1,650, completed a dominating individual performance at this year's national meet by breaking her third meet record in the event by posting a time of 16:17.66 to break a 21-year-old meet record.

The win was Frost's fourth in as many events, as she had recorded victories in the 200-, 500- and 1,000-yard freestyle events during the week. She broke national records in three of her victories and was named as the swimmer of the meet.

The University of North Dakota, competing in its last NCAA Division II meet before reclassifying next season, picked up a national championship on the final night as Carissa Gormall edged Indianapolis' Isabela Tafur to win the 100-yard freestyle in 50.01 seconds, 0.29 ahead of Tafur. The win by Gormall helped lead UND to a third place effort in the team standings.

Sarah Watson of Ouachita Baptist won the title in the 200-yard backstroke with the only sub-two minute time in the finals, finishing in 1:59.39. UC San Diego's Kendall Bohn won the final individual event of the night for the women by beating Brooke Heath in a close race in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:17.71.

UC San Diego finished fourth as a team and Nebraska-Omaha, the fifth place team, closed the meet with the relay victory as the team of Jessica Hessel, Kristy Gmeiner, Megan Guthmiller and Cait Hopkins posted a winning time of 3:25.52.

 

MEN:

Drury University won its fourth straight NCAA Division II national championship and sixth overall with a steady performance on the final day of the meet at the University of Missouri.

The Panthers got a national title from Mitch Snyder and added four more finishes among the top eight, including a runner-up finish from Alexander Protsenko in the 200-backstroke, then concluded the night with a relay title to finish with a total of 523.5 points.

Snyder won his second straight national title in the 1,650-yard freestyle as he pulled away in the latter stages of the race to win in a time of 15:19.58. Tampa's Chris O'Linger finished second in 15:25.43. Drury's 400-yard freestyle relay team of Protsenko, Kyle Kearbey, Yiwen Huang and Tomas Kusvard put the finishing touch on Drury's title with a national record time of 2:58.84 in its win.

Dan Perdew of UC San Diego, named as the swimmer of the meet, claimed the national title in the 100-yard freestyle as he beat out Ouachita Baptist's Radu Badalac and Indianapolis' Alex Arestis in the finals in 44.23. Badalac and Arestis tied for second in 44.47 seconds.

Ouachita Baptist's Nelson Silva completed an OBU sweep of the titles in the 200-backstroke, as he matched Sarah Watson's win in the women's race with one of his own in the men's race in 1:47.31, edging three competitors that finished within a second of first.

Jakub Jiracek of Seattle, who had been denied twice earlier in the meet of winning a record 11th national title at the Division II level, got that elusive championship in the 200-yard breaststroke as he held off Missouri S&T freshman Zlatan Hamzic by 0.39 seconds to win in 1:58.55.

St. Cloud State's Nate Jimerson took his second national title of the meet in the diving competition with a score of 546.15 in the three-meter event, besting the defending champion Brandon Birchek of Saint Rose.

Missouri S&T, the host institution for the NCAA Division II Championships, had a strong final day headed by Hamzic's runner-up effort in the 200-breaststroke to climb to second in the team standings, its highest national finish in school history in any sport.

West Chester took third place, followed by Ouachita Baptist and North Dakota.