Missouri’s swimming and diving success continued this weekend as the Tigers hosted Kentucky, Northwestern and Southern Illinois. The men defeated all three visiting teams. Northwestern did not bring their women’s team, and the Tiger women easily beat Kentucky and Southern Illinois.
Mizzou took first place in both the men’s and women’s 200-yard freestyle relay. The men’s team consisted of junior Michael Chadwick, senior Matthew Margritier, junior Fabian Schwingenschlogl and freshman Mikel Schreuders. Senior Anna Patterson, sophomore Rachel Hayden, freshman Maddie Gehrke and sophomore Hannah Stevens made up the women’s team.
The race marked Margritier’s first win of the season. Due to a shoulder injury, the senior had to swim in a limited role in the first two meets.
“It feels really good,” Margritier said. “Not only for myself, just getting back in, but just to be here for the team. I think being out for such a long period of time, I kind of felt like I was letting them down.”
Chadwick captured four individual victories throughout the meet and also swam on two winning relay teams. In his 100-yard freestyle, Chadwick set the fastest time by any NCAA swimmer of the season.
Hayden also had a strong meet. The sophomore won the 100- and 200-yard freestyle and finished third in the 50-yard freestyle.
Hayden has worked on her turns and breathing throughout the year. She implemented new strategies going into the meet.
“It’s really important to have a fast, low breath, and I tended to breathe way too high and way too slowly,” she said. “So to fix that they had me only breathe on my left side and so I tried that today for the first time.”
For the Tiger women, the backstroke duo of Stevens and junior Nadine Laemmler did not disappoint. Stevens won the 100-yard backstroke and Laemmler took second in the 200-yard event.
The men also had success with backstroke. Junior Carter Griffin and freshmen Alex Walton, Anthony Ashley and Griffin Schaetzle all finished under 1:50 in the 200-yard backstroke.
Senior Clark Thomas impressed during the diving portion of the meet. Thomas won both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving contest. For the women, sophomore Alexa Beckwith took second in the 1-meter competition and sophomore Kendra Kieser finished second in the 3-meter contest.
The Tigers’ next meet will be the Tennessee Invitational, which starts Nov. 20. At the meet, swimmers will get to swim long-course (50-meters) in the morning and short-course (25-yards) in the evening.
The team will be rested going into the meet, which should lead to a number of fast times.
“I think we’ll have a lot of Olympic Trial cuts come out of that meet and then a lot of NCAA cuts,” swimming coach Greg Rhodenbaugh said.
Overall, this weekend’s meet was a strong one for the Tigers. Hayden said she is very excited about how the team is swimming.
“We are in a way better place than we were last year,” she said. “Way, way better.”
