Ed Beach (Drury Sports Information) BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Drury University men’s and women’s swimming & diving teams finished as the NCAA-II national runner-up as competition concluded on Saturday at the national championship meet in Birmingham, Alabama.
Queens (N.C.) won the women’s title with 467 points with the Panthers coming in second with 385. Wingate finished third in the nation with 346 points while Nova Southeastern had 250.
The Drury men’s team also finished behind national champion Queens (N.C.). Queens racked up 563.5 points to the Panthers total of 350. Nova Southeastern was third with 313 points and Florida Southern had 265 to finish fourth.
Drury’s women’s squad managed a pair of national titles on the final day of competition. Bailee Nunn, a freshman from Marshfield, set an NCAA-II record in the 200 Breaststroke and won the event by more than four seconds finishing with a time of 2:09.12.
Drury also took home the national championship in the 400 Freestyle Relay with a time of 3:20.03. Zuzanna Chwadeczko, Vera Johansson, Katya Rudenko and Nunn combined for the relay win topping Wingate by 0.74 seconds.
Joan Casanovas won the men’s 1650 Freestyle national championship. The freshman from Spain posted a time of 15:11.20 to win the event by more than three seconds. Alexandre Reinbrecht was seventh in the same event with a time of 15:26.99.
Drury’s 400 Freestyle Relay came in fifth. Daniel Rzadkowski, Casanovas, Konrad Stepien and Rodrigo Caceras were three seconds off the winning pace but just one and half seconds back of the second place as they posted a time of 2:56.24
Other top Drury finishers on Saturday included Ella Bryan’s eighth place finish and Erica Dahlgren’s ninth place finish in the women’s 1650 Freestyle.
Rodrigo Caceras was 11th in the men’s 100 Freestyle and Jesus Flores was 14th in the 200 Breaststroke.
The second-place finishes by both squads improved on Drury’s placements in the national championship from last season. The Drury women’s team finished came in fourth place and the men’s squad ended up sixth in last year’s national championship meet.
The national championship for Queens was the third consecutive championships for both their men’s and women’s programs.
