New South Intercollegiate Swim Conference Championships

CLEVELAND, Mississippi, February 16. THE Truman women's swimming team captured their fifth straight New South Intercollegiate Swim Conference championship on Saturday night in Cleveland, Miss. The Bulldogs have won a conference championship 15 out of the last 16 years.

The women collected six more A-cuts on the final night and have 14 swimmers qualified for the national meet next month in Houston, Texas.

Jessie Lemaster and Stephanie Myers picked up their A-cut times by coming in first and second respectively in the 1650 free, while Krista Tippin, Kate Aherne and Anna Grinter also achieved their marks on the last night of the meet. Tippin placed third in the 200 back, Aherne was second in the 100 free and Grinter was second in the 200 fly.

The 400 free relay squad of Aherne, Carina Pautz, Tanya Slyvester and Kendra Brunkow won that event in an A-cut time of 3:29.59.

The women finished with 960 points and easily won the title over Delta State who amassed 805 points. Rival Drury finished last with just 243 points.

The men's national squad sits at six members after their fourth place finish at the NSISC meet.

Andrew Berdine earned an A-cut mark in the 200 back with his third place finish while Brian Tillis came in 4th in the 1650 (16:00.12-NCAA B) and Robert Markie finished fifth in the 200 fly (1:54.49-NCAA B).

Some Bulldogs may participate in a last chance meet in the next couple of weeks before nationals begin on March 11th at the Division II Winter Sports Festival in Houston, Texas.

Missouri S&T's swimming led the New South Intercollegiate Swimming Championships from wire-to-wire and put an exclamation point on its triumph Saturday night with wins in the final four events.

The Miners clinched their third straight win at the NSISC meet as David Sanchez-Turner, Zlatan Hamzic and Andrew Schranck won their individual events, then the Miners' 400-yard freestyle relay finished the competition with a win by over three seconds over host Delta State.

Sanchez-Turner won the 100-yard freestyle in 45.53 seconds, then Hamzic took first in the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:00.54, leading a one-two finish for the Miners as Zach Lemons finished right behind him in 2:05.76. Schranck completed the sweep of the final three individual events by taking the 200-yard butterfly in a meet record 1:50.64.

Following those three wins, S&T's 400-freestyle relay team of Agi Van Wetering, Kyle Gordon, Schranck and Sanchez-Turner posted a winning time of 3:02.86 to give the Miners a final total of 868 points, 128 more than Delta State.

The Miners also got second place efforts from Andrew Trowbridge in the 1,650-yard freestyle with a time of 15:49.35 and Jeff Enge in the 200-yard backstroke in 1:50.81.

S&T had a third and fourth in the 100-freestyle behind Sanchez-Turner's win, as Gordon took third in 45.89 seconds and Van Wetering was fourth in 46.37. Phil Arve also posted a fourth place finish in the 200-butterfly in 1:54.14.

Aaron Schmidt placed fifth in the 200-backstroke in 1:53.15 while Brian Howell was seventh in the event in 1:54.45. S&T also got a seventh place showing from Kyle Kammer in the 200-butterfly in 1:54.88 and an eighth place from Arve in the 1,650-free in 16:25.74.

In addition, the Miners got scoring performances from Paul Reinisch in the 200-butterfly with his win in the consolation finals in 2:01.67 and from Hamilton Vernon in the 100-free as he was fifth in the consolation round in 47.39 seconds.

S&T also got a consolation final win in the 400-free relay from Vernon, Howell, Danny Murphy and Kammer in 3:09.91.

The next competition for the Miners will take place at the NCAA Division II Championships, scheduled to begin March 11 in Houston, Texas

Special thanks to Truman State and Missouri S&T for contributing this report.

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