GREENSBORO, N.C.– For the second straight season, the Drury University women's swimming & diving team finished as the NCAA-II national runner-up. The Panthers finished in second place behind Queens (NC) after the final day of competition on Saturday at the NCAA-II swimming & diving national championship held at the Greensboro Aquatic Center in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Drury finished the meet with 401 points and trailed only Queens' total of 574.5 in the final standings. Nova Southeastern was third with 288.
The Drury men's team finished sixth with 250 points. Queens (NC) won the men's national championship with 558 points. California Baptist came in second with 307 followed by Indianapolis (300), Florida Southern (279), and Oklahoma Baptist was fifth with 251 points.
Sophomore
Bailee Nunn won the national championship in the 200-yard breaststroke giving the Marshfield native a national title on each of the four days of the event. Nunn took first with a time of 2:10.90 and won by more than two seconds. Earlier in the meet, she won national championships in the 200 individual medley, the 100 butterfly, and the 100 backstroke.
Zuza Chwadeczko (fah-DETCH-coe) will bring a national title back to the Drury campus in the 100 freestyle. The senior from Lublin, Poland had a time of 49.36 and won by .18 seconds. Drury's
Vera Johansson was fourth in the event with a time of 49.85.
For the third time in the national championship meet, the women's teams from Drury and Queens had a relay decided by a fraction of a second. Drury's 400 freestyle relay team of Nunn,
Katya Rudenko, Chwadeczko, and Johansson swam a 3:18.08 in the event only to be out-touched at the wall by the Royals who set an NCAA-II record with a time of 3:18.04.
Erica Dahlgren finished seventh for the Panthers women's team in the 1650 freestyle completing the distance-swim in 16:45.44.
In the men's 1650 freestyle race, the Panthers finished fourth, ninth and 12th.
Alex Reinbrecht turned in a fourth place finish with a time of 15:19.82 while Federico Brumana was ninth (15:29.99) and
Joan Casanovas was 12th (15:38.20).
Drury's men's team also had three swimmers place in the 200 breaststroke.
Andrea Bazzoli was ninth with a time of 1:57.81 while
Young Tae Seo (tay, say-oh) came in 10th (1:59.03) and
Jesus Flores picked up a point for Drury in 16th place with a time of 2:01.53.
The Panthers lost key points when they disqualied in the 400 free relay during the preliminary heats earlier in the day.
The national runner-up finish for the women's team marked the third time in four years they have finished second in the nation and the 22nd time in 23 years they have either been first or second nationally.
The Drury men's team has finished sixth or better for each of the 24 years they have competed at the NCAA-II level.
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