Day 1, Tuesday Feb. 15
The 2022 SEC Men’s and Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships started on Tuesday in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tuesday’s events included the women’s one-meter diving final, the women’s and men’s 200 yard medley relay, the men’s three-meter final and the women’s and men’s 800-yard freestyle relay.
The Missouri women’s 200 medley relay team came in sixth place with a time of 1:36.63, while the men’s 200 medley relay team placed seventh in their event with a time of 1:24.95.
The Tigers finished ninth in the women’s 800 yard freestyle relay. The team with senior Molly Gowans, junior Amy Feddersen, junior Macy Rink and senior Allison Bloebaum recorded a time of 7:11.08.
In the men’s 800 yard freestyle relay, Missouri came in sixth place with a time of 6:18.74. Senior Jack Dubois, senior Jack Dahlgren, sophomore Frederik Rindshøj and senior Danny Kovac represented the Tigers in the event.
While the Tigers failed to secure spots in the finals for the diving events, sophomore Takuto Endo scored 17 points and junior Carlo Lopez scored 11 points for Missouri in the men’s three-meter preliminaries. In the women’s one meter preliminaries, senior Sarah Rousseau and sophomore Kayla Wilson scored seven points and two points, respectively.
At the conclusion of day one, the Missouri men finished in seventh place with 122 points, while the Missouri women finished in 10th place with 97 points.
Day 2, Wednesday Feb. 16The Tigers started Wednesday’s finals strong.The women’s 200-yard freestyle relay team finished in third place, securing bronze for a podium finish. The team with senior Megan Keil, fifth-year Sarah Thompson, Feddersen and sophomore Sierra Smith recorded a time of 1:27.41, adding 54 points to Missouri’s total score.
The men’s 200-yard freestyle relay team finished in seventh place, scoring 46 points with a time of 1:17.46. Swimmers on the team included junior Kevin Hammer, freshman William Wittington, senior Alex Moore and senior Kyle Leach.
In the women’s and men’s 500-yard freestyle, Bloebaum and Dubois each finished in 22nd place in their respective races. Each scored three points.
Three Missouri men advanced to the men’s 200-yard individual medley final. Kovac finished fourth with a time of 1:43.27. Junior Ben Patton finished ninth with a time of 1:43.92 and Rindshøj finished 15th with a time of 1:45.16. In total, the three men scored 58 points toward Missouri’s team score. Patton’s time of 1:43.92 set a new personal record in the event.
In an extremely tight women’s 50-yard freestyle race, in which the time between the first and last place finisher was approximately a second, Keil took eighth place with a time of 21.97 seconds. In the men’s event, Hammer placed 17th with a time of 19.54 seconds.
The Missouri men failed to secure a place in the men’s one-meter diving final. However, Endo and Lopez scored 302.55 points and 280.60 points respectively during the preliminaries. Endo and Lopez’s performances contributed 26 points combined toward the Missouri men’s total score.
At the conclusion of day two, the Missouri men fell to ninth place with 269 points, while the women rose to eighth place with 206.5 points.
Day 3, Thursday Feb. 17
On Thursday, the Tigers continued to bring the heat, with the highlight of the night being the women’s and men’s 100-yard butterfly events. Thompson and Kovac both placed fourth, with times of 51.49 seconds and 45.48 seconds respectively. Thompson and Kovac each scored 26 points to contribute to their teams scores.
Gowans placed 22nd in the women’s 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:47.19, setting a new personal best in the event. The men’s event saw Dahlgren place fifth with a time of 1:32.34, which marked another personal best for the Tigers.
In the women’s 400-yard individual medley, senior Ana Pozder came in 24th place with a time of 4:19.60, while Dubois and sophomore Mikolaj Malec came in 15th and 23rd place respectively. In the men’s event. Dubois recorded a time of 3:49.25 and Malec recorded a time of 3:50.85.
To round out the night, Rousseau placed 11th in the women’s three-meter diving event with a score of 302.65, and Wilson finished 19th with a score of 272.25. Combined, Rousseau and Wilson added 22 points to the Missouri women’s point total.
At the end of day three, the Missouri men rose to seventh place with 344 points, while the Missouri women fell to ninth place with 271.5 points.
Day 4, Friday Feb. 18
Friday’s competition saw the second podium finish for the Tigers. Thompson placed second in the women’s 100-yard backstroke, recording a time of 51.35 seconds. Junior Meredith Rees furthered Missouri’s dominance in the event, finishing fourth with a time of 51.63 seconds. Combined, Thompson and Rees added 54 points to Missouri’s total score. Feddersen placed 14th in the event.
Dahlgren placed fifth in the men’s 100-yard backstroke with a time of 46.07 seconds, and freshman Grant Bochenski placed 14th with a time of 47.15 seconds.
In the men’s 200-yard butterfly, Kovac finished fourth with a time of 1:41.18, making it his second fourth-place finish of the event. Junior Luke Davis, Malec and junior Noah Scheuermann finished 11th, 15th and 24th in the event, respectively.
Five Tigers earned points toward Missouri’s total score in the men’s 100-yard breaststroke. Patton led the pack with a time of 52.03 seconds to finish fourth. Sophomore Josh Pales finished in 10th, Rindshøj finished in 11th, junior Will Goodwin finished in 13th and freshman Tyler Spillane finished in 16th. From this event, the Missouri men added 83.5 points to Missouri’s total score.
In men’s platform diving, Lopez and Endo placed in 12th and 19th place respectively.
In the women’s 400-yard medley relay, the team with Rees, senior Kayla Jones, Thompson and Keil placed in 10th with a time of 3:34.80. In the men’s event, the team with Bochenski, Patton, Kovac and Dahlgren recording a time of 3:06.53 placed sixth.
The penultimate day of the SEC Championships saw the Missouri men and women stay stagnant in its rankings. The men remained in seventh place with a score of 589.5 points, and the women stayed in ninth place with a score of 372.5 points.
Day 5, Saturday Feb. 19
On the last day of the SEC Championships, the Missouri men finished the competition in seventh place with a score of 716.5 points, while the Missouri women finished in ninth place with a score of 485.5 points.
In the men’s 200-yard backstroke, Dahlgren finished in fifth place with a time of 1:41.08, adding 25 points to Missouri’s total score. Malec finished in 12th place and Bochenski finished in 18th place.
In the women’s event, Rees finished in eighth place with a time of 1:55.21. Freshman Colleen Duffy also finished in 24th place.
Goodwin placed sixth in the men’s 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:54.67, adding 24 points to Missouri’s total score. Patton placed in 16th place and Rindshøj finished in 24th. Junior Katrina Brathwaite finished the women’s event in 19th place with a time of 2:12.20.
In the women’s 1650-yard freestyle, Bloebaum placed 12th and set another personal best with a time of 16:19.96. Fifth-year Hayley Hill finished in 29th.
Rousseau and Wilson finished in 17th and 19th place respectively in the women’s platform diving event.
Overall, Missouri performed strongly, although their performance in the 2021 SEC Championships was placed higher than this year. The Tigers tended to perform better in the shorter distance events, such as the 50, 100 and 200-yard events. All of the podium spots Missouri secured occurred in the 50 and 200-yard events. Missouri placed third in the women’s 200-yard freestyle relay and second in the women’s 100-yard backstroke.
Kovac, Thompson, Rees, Dahlgren and Goodwin are among the Missouri names who stood out, with fourth, fifth and sixth place finishes in several short-distance events.
However, Missouri struggled to gain momentum in diving events but did place consistently within the top 20 divers in these events. Missouri also struggled in longer events and failed to secure more than two podium finishes throughout the week.
The Tigers will be back in action Saturday, Feb. 26 and Sunday, Feb. 27 at the Mizzou Qualifier to qualify for the NCAA Championships on March 23 through March 26.Edited by Riley Gearhart | rgearhart@themaneater.com