Sunday marked the end of the three-day Mizzou Invitational, and the MU swimming and diving team took first place with a combined total of 1,746 points The team competed against Kansas, Boise State, Drury, Saint Louis, North Dakota, North Texas and California-Davis.
As a predominantly young team, many of the freshmen contributed to the scoreboard during the weekend. Freshman swimmer Eegan Groome swam the 1650 freestyle in 15:13.64, breaking the all-time MU record. In the 200-yard breaststroke, freshman Igor Kozlovskij placed first with a time of 1:57.88. Both swimmers met the NCAA Qualifying B Standard with their times.
“More people have qualified for NCAA’s than I think we’ve ever had at this time before,” coach Greg Rhodenbaugh said. “We’ve got some people close in individual events too. On real short rest, I think it kind of tells you where we are right now.”
The team also performed well on the diving front, with sophomore diver Mitch Harris placing first in the men’s finals and senior diver Christina Gailey placing first on the women’s side with a score of 280.6.
Along with qualifying for NCAA’s, many Tigers also made the cut for the Olympic time trials. Freshman Sam Tierney qualified to the Olympic time trials in the 200 breaststroke.
“I really wanted to make that trials cut and swim as fast as I could,” Tierney said. “It feels great. I’ve been working really hard for this and to finally have this under my belt feels awesome.”
For Tierney, success was a product of motivation.
“I’ve had a lot of motivating teammates to help me get here,” Tierney said. “I even told a few people to just yell at me during my race because it helps get me going.”
Rhodenbaugh said team collaboration was certainly something they were trying to focus on this weekend.
“An invitational like this is the closest thing we’ll have to a conference meet and NCAA’s with the format,” he said. “Something we were really focusing on was supporting each other by the pool. I thought they did a really good job of that.”
Taking place near the midpoint of the season, the meet served as test for where the team stands as it inches closer to the Big 12 Conference Championships.
Rhodenbaugh said he has been pleased with how the team has performed thus far.
“We’ve beaten some teams we’ve never beaten before in dual meets, which is a nice barometer for where we are,” Rhodenbaugh said. “We’ve got people with top three or four times in the nation, which we’ve never had before, so we’ve kind of re-written the top five this year. Any time you’re doing that, you know you’re getting better as a team.”
The team will get a chance to breathe, as its next meet isn’t for another five weeks. Missouri will jump in the pool again Jan. 14 when it faces off against Minnesota. The meet will signify the final home stretch of swim meets before the Big 12 Championships on February 22.