CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. – The Drury University women's swimming & diving team won their fourth Great Lakes Valley Conference championship in program history on Saturday, and the DU men's team finished second at the league championship meet in Crawfordsville, Indiana.
The Panthers women's squad finished with 898.5 points while Indianapolis came in second with 765.5 and Truman State was third with 655 points.
The Drury men's team finished behind Indianapolis as the Greyhounds won their first league championship. UIndy racked up 845 points while the Panthers had a total of 695, and Missouri S&T was third with 574.5 points.
Erica Dahlgren was named the GLVC Women's Swimmer of the Year, and the sophomore from Sweden won her third event of the meet on Saturday as she set a new conference record in the 1650 freestyle. Dahlgren won by nearly 20 seconds as she swam a winning time of 16:48.62 breaking a mark she set last year as a freshman.
Dahlgren ended the meet with three first place finishes sweeping the indivudal distance events while breaking two GLVC records, and she earned a fourth gold medal as part of a winning relay team.
Drury's women's swimmers took first, second and fourth in the 100 freestyle as Zuza Chwadeczo (should-zay-coe) posted a time of 49.80 for the win while Abby Lunzmann was second with a time of 50.86, and
Vera Johansson came in third at 51.17.
The Panthers capped the championship meet with a record-setting win in the 400 freestyle relay.
Caytee Wright, Lunzmann,
Katya Rudenko and Chwadeczo won with a new league mark of 3:22.40 and finished four seconds ahead of second place Indianapolis.
Drury head coach
Brian Reynolds was named the GLVC women's swimming & diving Co-Coach of the Year with McKendree's Jimmy Tierney following the meet.
The Panthers competed without
Bailee Nunn. The sophomore from Marshfield, who was last year's GLVC Swimmer of the Year and Freshman of the Year, missed the competition with an injury.
Men's swimmer
Andrea Bazzoli gave the Panthers a win in the 200 breaststroke. The junior from Italy had a winning time of 1:57.96 while teammate
Jesus Flores was second with a time of 2:00.98.
The Drury men's team got a third, fourth and fifth place finish in the 1650 freestyle.
Alex Reinbrecht was third in the event swimming it in 15:30.82 while
Joan Casanovas followed with a 15:31.58 and Federico Brumana was fifth at 15:32.11.
Drury's men's and women's swim teams compete again on Feb. 24 in a last-chance national qualifying meet held at the Breech Pool on the Drury campus. Both squads will send swimmers to the NCAA-II national championship meet in Greensboro, North Carolina March 14-17.
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