Missouri State had three individuals win gold medals as the Bears’ women’s swimming and diving team secured its eighth-consecutive Missouri Valley Conference Championship on Saturday, Feb. 21, at the Dr. Edward J. Shea Natatorium on the campus of Southern Illinois.
The Bears earned 815 points over a four-day span, 95 more points than the runner-up and host Salukis (720). Illinois State finished third with 613 points, Evansville placed fourth with 437, Northern Iowa fifth with 428.50 and Arkansas-Little Rock rounded out the team scores with 260.50.
The conference title was MSU’s 12th in the past 13 seasons, while its eight-straight seasons with a conference championship puts the Bears in a tie for the second-longest active streak in NCAA Division I women’s swimming and diving with the University of Virginia.
“I think it speaks to a lot to our tradition, a winning culture, hardworking and just a great group of kids,” head coach Dave Collins said. “We graduate good kids every year, but I think the new kids come in and feed off the culture and tradition.”
MSU got off to a strong start in the 200 back.
Megan Holthoff had a personal-best time in the preliminaries (2:01.92), Sydney Zupan placed first in her heat (2:00.17) and Quincy Howell swam her best time of the season (2:04.92) as the Bears advanced three to the A-finals.
Zupan eventually won her first individual conference title in the A-finals by swimming a career-best 1:59.22, with Holthoff coming in third and Howell eighth.
Briana Horozewski placed third in the B-finals in her top time of 2014-15 (2:05.48) and CeCe Etter got fourth in a time of 2:06.44.
“It’s really nice to have the feeling that you contribute to a win,” senior Megan Holthoff said. “Definitely being a senior and being able to do that was awesome.”
In the following 100 free, two MSU swimmers qualified for the A-finals as Anna Bump broke her top time in the event (51.94) and Kate Gately finished second in her heat. Shawna Elsey advanced to the B-finals and Shannon Myer finished in a time of 53.33.
Gately placed third in the A-finals with Anna Bump following her with an eighth-place finish, while Elsey had a season-best time in the B-finals.
SIU had momentum early in the finals by earning the top three slots in the 1650 free – despite a fourth-place finish by Heather Snyder – but the Bears responded with two-consecutive winners in 200-events.
Lauren Pavel touched the wall in the 200 breast with personal bests in the prelims and finals, while a conference crown for the third time in the 2015 MVC Championship with a first-place finish in the A-finals. Alyssa Powers also advanced to the A-finals by swimming a season-best in the prelims and the A-finals (2:21.05) to place seventh.
“It’s surreal,” senior Alyssa Powers said. “It still doesn’t feel like I’m done. This was one of the most exciting meets we’ve had this year because it was close, but we were still pretty confident and it made it exciting.”
Olivia Gean completed personal-bests in consecutive races in the 200 breast and placed first in the C-finals and Andi Burroughs ended as runner-up in the top time of her career in the 200 breast B-finals (2:22.45) for the Bears.
The 200 fly put the championship out of reach as four MSU swimmers qualified for the A-finals.
Dora Kiss set a school-, pool- and MVC-record time in the 200 fly A-finals by finishing in a time of 1:59.13. Her second title at this year’s 2015 conference championship was Kiss’s third in a row and also made the NCAA ‘B’ consideration-time cut.
The Bears eventually finished 1-2-3-5 in the 200 fly A-finals as Rebecca Amparano (2:00.87), Ibby Simcox (2:02.21) and Hanna Flanagan (2:05.49) all set personal-best times. Lauren Williams also swam her best time of the season in the prelims (2:10.55).
“I think the 200-strokes have been a solid set of events for us all year so it was nice that they came on the last day,” Collins said. “We just finished well.”
“We had a lot people step up that were unexpected, do what they needed to do and our team really came together and supported one another from start to finish,” Powers said.
The Bears completed the 400 free relay – the last event of the conference championship – in third place in a season-best 3:25.80 behind the group of Bump, Holthoff, Zupan and Gately.
"I’m really proud of our team and even though we lost some top individuals (from last season), I think we still had a great meet with our depth and the younger swimmers really stepped up and were able to win some races," Holthoff said.
“I thought we rebounded well,” Collins said. “We kind of got the meet started a little slower than we wanted to, but had a good final session. I’m really proud of the way they reacted and they swam well tonight.”
