The Missouri State men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams both captured 152 points to power past Evansville in the pool Friday, Oct. 9, at Hammons Student Center.
The Bears’ women’s squad topped the Purple Aces 152-77, while the MSU men’s team earned a 152-84 victory over conference foe Evansville. Missouri State won 24 of the 26 events competed in during the dual, with the women’s team picking up first place in all 13 of its events.
“I’m real pleased with our performance tonight,” Bears head coach Dave Collins said. “I thought we saw some improvements in some areas from our first meet of the year up at Missouri last weekend. We still have a lot of things to work on and these early season meets are great because it gives us a chance to evaluate what we’re doing at practice, while it gives us a long list of things to get better at. Evansville is a good, young team. (Evansville coach) Rickey (Perkins) has a bunch of freshmen and he’s a great coach, so it was good to race them.”
The women’s team got off to a strong start by going 1-2-3-4 in the 400 medley relay, as the Bears’ fastest squad of Sydney Zupan, Lauren Pavel, Josie Pearson and Anna Bump finished in a time of 3 minutes, 55.19 seconds. The men’s team followed suit by picking up the top two spots in the same event, with Bryce Blattner, Uvis Kalnins, Artur Osvath and Will Brand finishing with a top time of 3:24.20.
In the 1000 freestyle, Emma Metz (10:49.94) took the race on the women’s side and Canaan Campbell (10:03.04) won for the men. Will Frisbie also placed third in the race.
Senior Ibby Simcox led the way for Missouri State in the 200 free with her time of 1:59.69, while Moriah Moore had the second-fastest finish (2:00.94) and Heather Snyder the fourth fastest (2:02.38). Osvath touched the wall first among male competitors with a final of 1:43.12.
“I don’t think we were necessarily expecting to win by that much, but I think that everybody came out and raced really tough,” Ibby Simcox said. “Evansville always comes in with a really strong team so I think we did really well just competing today.”
Hope Ernhart picked up the first of her two race wins in the 50 free (24.52), as Zupan finished the second-fastest finish (24.70) and Loretta Stelnicki placed third. On the men’s side, Kevin Bolman won the event in a time of 21.65.
The most dominant performance by the Bears’ men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams Friday came in the 200 individual medley.
The women’s team finished with the nine fastest times in the 200 IM, as Pearson (2:07.38) led the way followed by Dora Kiss (2:11.77) and Briana Horozewski (2:12.92). Rebecca Amparano, CeCe Etter, Kaylee Larson, Emma Wall, Andi Burroughs and Olivia Gean rounded out the MSU effort. Kacper Cwiek placed first in the 200 IM as the Bears 1-2-3-4 went with Ethan Bresette (1:55.44), Michael Mollak (1:58.31) and Brand (1:59.31) rounding out the top four.
Pearson, a freshman from Evergreen, Colorado, eventually won the 100 butterfly to cap three events she placed first in.
“I’ve been working very hard in practice and I’m seeing it translate into the meets, so that definitely makes me happy,” Josie Pearson said. “It makes me really excited for the rest of the season.”
The Bears continued to have success in the back-half of the dual as Nina Privitera, Pavel, Kalnins, Mollak, Stelnicki, Bolman, Zupan and Blattner all picked up victories. Privitera won both 1-meter and 3-meter diving, Bolman had two first-place finishes and Kalnins broke the pool record in the 100 breaststroke to highlight event-winning performances.
Over 15 other Bears eventually finished with top-five finishes to end the dual Friday.
Missouri State swimming and diving returns for its final dual of the weekend at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 10, versus the Southern Illinois Salukis at Hammons Student Center. Fans are encouraged to wear black shirts for a “black-out,” as the Bears’ team hands out free black t-shirts to the first 100 students in attendance.
“Tomorrow, we’re going to have to be good,” Collins said. (Southern Illinois) is a great team and they race tough in season, so we’re going to have our hands full tomorrow morning.”
“What’s important for tomorrow is getting rest, getting some sleep and to race as fast as we can,” Kacper Cwiek said. “It’s going to be really tough because (Southern Illinois) is very good. We need everybody to race at their highest level.”
