Meet Records Abound as Drury and Wayne State Continue Dominance

Women: Drury exerted there dominance tonight as they broke 4 meet records and opened up a substantial lead.  After tonight’s events they lead Wayne State 285.5 to 206.  UC San Diego had a strong showing and has put themselves within striking distance of second with 199 points.  Truman State has a solid hold on fourth with 163 points.  Clarion, Ouachita Baptist and West Chester follow in fifth though seventh with 132, 123 and 112 points respectfully.

200 Free Relay: Drury starts of the 2nd night in golden, record setting style, winning the sprint relay with a time of 1:32.00.  UC San Diego made it interesting with a great back half.  Anchor Audrey Panis, splitting 22.68, closed the gap on Drury, but came up short of gold with a time of 1:32.16.  Henderson State led the rest of the pack with a time of 1:33.77.

400 IM: No the winning time was not 4:07 as the results flashed up on the board, but Yuan Qing Li of Drury did win the gold and broke the meet record in 4:15.76, although it is unofficial at this time due to using manual watch times for the results.  Paulina Alexander made a come from behind finish on the breaststroke and freestyle splitting 57.88 to earn her second silver medal of the meet cracking the 4:20 barrier going 4:18.80.  Drury’s Abbey Musch added to the Drury point total with a third place going 4:21.20 finishing in front of Elaina Hogle of Wayne State.

100 Butterfly: Drury’s Janelle Slattery and Li Tao blew away the field in an intra squad showdown.  Both swimmers finished under the meet record going 53.76 and 53.80 with the gold going to veteran, senior Slattery.  Both athletes looked easy going out and really hammered the 3rd 25 to pull away from the field.  University of Indianapolis junior, Erica Smith beat the rest of the field for third going 55.23.  Drury’s lead increases to a 71.5 point difference over Wayne State after the fly 204.5-133.

200 Freestyle: Jing Hua of Drury and Kate Aherne of Truman trailed Tampa’s Jesse Bardin by less then .5 seconds at the 100, but Bardin’s great walls and momentum through the third 50 carried her to an easy victory going 1:47.75.  “At the 100 it was anyone’s race.  I just wanted to hold on.  That last 25 really hurt, but I knew everyone else was feeling it too,” remembered Jessie.  Kate Aherne grabbed the second place finish in 1:49.46 touching out Jing Hua.  Incarnate Word’s Rachel Watson’s consolation swim would have earned her silver going 1:49.14.

1 Meter Diving: The women’s 1 meter diving event was quite a shoot out.  Just over 12 points separated 1st through 4th. Clarion claimed their second diving victory of the meet with Kayla Kelosky winning with a score of 440.60.  Finishing in a close second was Kelsey Berkeland of St. Cloud scoring 437.85.  Jena Gardone, also of Clarion finished in third 2 points behind with a score of 435.80.

400 Medley Relay:  Drury continued its assault on the record books with a record setting medley going 3:43.11.  Janelle Slattery led off with a 54.78 back stroke.  UC San Diego’s Kendall Bohn’s 1:02.87  split in the breaststroke claimed the lead at the half way point for UCSD, but Drury’s Li Tao earned back the lead with a great fly leg and Eunate Garro brought the Panthers home cracking 50 seconds going 49.91.  Ouachita Baptist hung in close the whole way and finished under the existing record going 3:44.44, followed by UC San Diego at 3:44.64.

Men: Everyone is getting into the act on the men’s side.  Limestone, Drury and Wayne State came away with gold tonight.  Only 18 points separate 4th place from 7th place after day 2.  Wayne State still holds the lead over Drury 232.5 to 218, Limestone College is in a comfortable third with 171.5 and Ouachita Baptist and Missouri S&T are tied for fourth with 138 points.  UC San Diego and Wingate follow in sixth and seventh racking up 121.5 and 120 points a piece.

200 Free Relay: The Limestone College “Big Guns” , Criag Jordens, 19.90; Matt Parsonage, 20.05; Anders Melin, 19.73; and Goran Majlat, 19.57; brought home a commanding victory with a meet record time of 1:19.25.  Wingate gave them a great race on the front half in particular and finished in second with a time of 1:20.59.  The UC San Diego Tritons sprint squad pulled out the third spot in a time of 1:20.90.  Wayne State took advantages of Drury’s absence in the finals by placing fourth and thus taking the lead of the men’s meet 128.5 to 101.

400 IM: Drury’s Kyrillo Fesenko kept the streak of meet records going with a convincing victory of 3:49.17.  Teammate Jun Han Kim made up a lot of time on his freestyle leg, splitting  , to go 3:52.26 to give the Panthers the 1-2 sweep.  Duarte Mourao had a great swim from lane 8 to secure third finishing the race in 3:52.34.

100 Butterfly:  After a strong third place showing in the 400 IM, and taking a 20 minute breather, Wayne State’s Duarte Mourao showed the crowd his versatility and stamina by winning the 100 fly in 47.25,  just narrowly out touching Manuel Stiem of Indianapolis by .03 seconds.  Drury’s Yiwen Huang rounded out the top three going 47.52.  Duarte said, “ I made the decision today to focus on one race at a time.  I didn’t think about the fly till after the IM.  I went up to the blocks feeling confident.”

200 Freestyle: Mid term transfer from the Ukraine Sergiy Bilov stated, “this is the best swimming experience ever.”  Sporting a mohawk, no goggles and no cap the Drury sophomore took out the 200 free strong and fast going 46.7 at the 100 and holding on to out touch a surging field led by Gus Chagas of Wingate and Alex Yatsko of Incarnate Word going 1:36.74, 1:36.98 and 1:37.14 repectfully.

400 Medley Relay: Start off with a meet record performance in the consols by Drury, 3:15.44 and what do you do for an encore in finals.  Well Wayne State and Ouachita had something to say about that.  Wayne State from lane 7  got out fast on the backwith a 48.53 lead off from Sean Smith, stayed in the hunt on the breaststroke , pulled away on the fly with Mourao’s 46.59 and hung on in the free to win with a time of 3:14.15.  Ouachita, last nights sprint medley champions made it close as Badalac reeled in WSUsplitting 42.75, but came up short going 3:14.21.  Limestone and Tampa filled the 3rd and 4th spots going 3:16.52 and 3:16.83.