Host Miner swimmers place 2^nd in National Tourney

By John Kean
S&T Sports Information

COLUMBIA -- During each day of the NCAA Division II Championships, the Missouri S&T swimming team kept moving up in the team standings, from sixth to fifth and then fourth heading into the final day.

On Saturday, March 15 the Miners jumped two more spots in the team standings to land the highest finish ever for a Miner athletic team at a national competition, as Missouri S&T took second place at the meet that concluded Saturday night.

S&T finished with 336 points in the meet, beating out third place West Chester by nearly 20 points to finish one spot higher than the previous best which came in 1998. Drury won the team competition with 523.5 points.

"We knew going in that our best days were going to be in the back half of the meet," said Miner head coach Doug Grooms. "We just had to stay patient. We were swimming extremely well and just had to stay with it.

"Our team went from sixth to fifth to fourth and we knew our last day was our strongest," Grooms added. "After we started out with two of the nine fastest swims in the 50-freestyle, the kids just fed off each other and followed suit."

The Miners' performance at the national meet helped earn Grooms the national coach of the year award from the College Swimming Coaches Association of America.

The Miners got a second place finish from freshman Zlatan Hamzic in the 200-yard breaststroke with a school record time of 1:58.55, as he finished second to Seattle's Jakub Jiracek who won his NCAA Division II record 11th national championship.

S&T also got fifth place finishes Saturday from Matt Hug in the 1,650-yard freestyle in 15:38.92 and David Sanchez-Turner in the 100-yard freestyle in 44.90 seconds, while getting a sixth from Jeff Enge in the 200-yard backstroke.

Enge, Kyle Kammer and Aaron Schmidt, who set the school record in the 200-backstroke at 1:49.54 in the preliminaries, all finished among the top eight in the event with time under 1:50; no Miner had cleared that mark prior to Saturday.

Kammer was seventh in the finals in 1:49.72 and Schmidt eighth in 1:49.93.

Andrew Trowbridge also landed All-America honors in the 1,650-freestyle with his mark of 15:45.39, while David Calcara also had a seventh place finish in the 200-breaststroke with a time of 2:04.31 and Kyle Gordon also scored in the consolation finals of the 100-freestyle.

The Miners' 400-yard freestyle relay team of Gordon, Mark Chamberlain, Hug and Sanchez-Turner took eighth place with a time of 3:03.90 after it went 3:02.30.

In all, the Miners set nine school records during the course of the national meet held at the Mizzou Aquatics Center and earned 40 All-America awards, including 33 finishes among the top eight.

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Miners’ Grooms named national Coach of the Year

By John Kean
S&T Sports Information

COLUMBIA – Missouri S&T swimming coach Doug Grooms, who guided the Miners to a second place finish at the NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships over the weekend, was named as the College Swimming Coaches Association of America's national "Coach of the Year" for the 2007-08 season.

Grooms led the Miners to the highest team finish for any athletic team in the history of the program, as they finished behind only Drury at the national meet in Columbia, Mo. During the course of the meet, 12 of the 13 S&T swimmers at the meet earned All-America honors.

"Any time you win an award like that, it is an incredible feeling," Grooms said. "To be able to win such an award is due to the fact that the swimmers competed exceptionally well. The success they had put me in a position to win this honor and they deserve the credit."

The 12 swimmers earned a total of 33 All-America awards, seven honorable mention citatons and set nine school records during the course of the weekend.

In 10 years as the Miners' head coach, Grooms has led the Miners to a top 10 finish at the NCAA Division II Championships nine times; Missouri S&T finished fourth last season prior to this year's second place finish. He was an assistant coach in the program for six seasons prior to taking over as head coach and during that time, the Miners had finishes of eighth and third in the nation, the latter coming in 1998 which stood as the best team performance for S&T until this season.

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Miner swimmers move up to 4^th

By John Kean
S&T Sports Information

COLUMBIA -- The Missouri S&T swimming team moved up one spot in the team standings Friday to fourth place thanks to a third place finish by freshman Zlatan Hamzic and a fourth place effort by their 800-yard freestyle relay team.

Hamzic finished within a second of the national title in the 100-yard breaststroke as he recorded a time of 55.50 seconds in the event; the winning mark was 54.74 by Wayne State's Christer Tour.

The relay team of David Sanchez-Turner, Mark Chamberlain, Kyle Gordon and Matt Hug had a time of 6:43.51 to finish fourth in the race and hold off North Dakota, whom it leads by five points in the team standings heading into the final day.

Hug also earned All-America honors with a sixth-place finish in the 500-yard freesyle as he posted a time of 4:30.60 in the finals. Earlier in the day, Hug broke the school record in the event with a mark of 4:27.87 which was the best time in the preliminary session.

Incarnate Word's Aliaksandr Yatsko won the event in 4:25.84.

The Miners got honorable mention All-America performances from Andrew Trowbridge in the 500-freestyle with a 14th place finish in 4:34.13 and from David Calcara in the 100-breaststroke as he took 12th in 57.18 seconds.

Danny Murphy swam a seasonal-best 4:37.72 in the 500-free but narrowly missed qualifying for competition Friday night.

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Miners fifth in swimming nationals

By John Kean
S&T Sports Information

COLUMBIA –– The host Missouri S&T swimming team moved up one spot in the team standings Thursday night, March 13 at the NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships and also saw its longest standing swimming record fall during the course of the night.

Freshman Danny Murphy broke a record that had stood for 22 years in the S&T books in the finals of the 400-yard individual medley as he recorded a time of 4:00.68. Murphy’s performance, which broke Derek Coon’s record of 4:00.85 that had stood since 1986, was good for seventh place in the final standings.

S&T’s best finish Thursday came from its 400-yard medley relay team of Kyle Kammer, Zlatan Hamzic, Paul Reinisch and David Sanchez-Turner with a time of 3:21.41 to earn All-America status for the group.

The Miners also got an All-America showing from Matt Hug in the 200-yard freestyle Thursday as he finished eighth in a time of 1:40.77; Sanchez-Turner placed 12th in that event for honorable mention All-America as he recorded a time of 1:40.43 in the evening session after posting a personal-best mark of 1:39.93 in the preliminaries.

Jeff Enge finished a close second –– by .08 seconds –– in the consolation 400-IM to Minnesota State’s Marty Wahle to earn honorable mention All-America in that event. Enge finished the consolation final in 4:01.09.

The Miners opened the night with a seventh place finish in the 200-yard freestyle relay, as the team of Kyle Gordon, David Sanchez-Turner, Matt Hug and Mark Chamberlain landed All-America honors by posting a seasonal-best time of 1:22.80.

S&T is currently fifth in the team standings, with Drury well out in front of the pack with 233 points. North Dakota is currently second, followed by West Chester and Ouachita Baptist.

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S&T co-hosts NCAA Division II Swimming Championships

By John Kean
S&T Sports Information

ROLLA – Missouri S&T will serve as a co-host for the 2008 NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships this week in Columbia, Mo., and will be taking 13 of its own swimmers to the four-day meet.

The meet will take place at the three-year-old Mizzou Aquatics Center on the campus of the University of Missouri –– the other co-host for the championships –– and will run from March 12-15. The men’’s and women’s championships will be contested simultaneously over the four days in the first NCAA competition that the university will serve as a host of since the 1996 South Central regional tournament in men’s basketball.

It is the first time that Missouri S&T has been named as the host institution for an NCAA championship event.

During each of the four days, the preliminary rounds will take place during the morning session that will start at 10:30 a.m. each day. The championship and consolation championships will be contested during the evening sessions that begin nightly at 6 p.m., with the exception of the two distance freestyle events and the 800-yard freestyle relay which are timed finals that will take place during both sessions.

The Miner swimming team is hoping to repeat its performance from last season at the national meet where it finished fourth overall. The Miners will have their second-largest contingent of student-athletes in the meet, as 13 individuals will take part in the competition.

Heading the Miners at the meet is senior Matt Hug, who has earned 12 All-America awards at the last three NCAA Division II meets and finished third in two events that he will be competing in next week, the 500- and 1,650-yard freestyle.

Of the 13 individuals S&T will have at the meet, nine made the meet by making an automatic cut in an individual event.

S&T has placed among the top 10 at the NCAA Division II Championships in 11 of the last 12 years and had all 12 of its individuals that competed at last year’s meet earn All-America honors.

Besides Missouri S&T, the meet will have a strong regional flavor at the top of the list. Drury University won both the men’s and women’s national championships in 2007 and Drury’s men have won the last three national titles. Meanwhile, teams from the state of Missouri have won 11 straight women’s championships, as Drury’s title in 2007 snapped Truman State’s six-year run as the national champion; Drury won four straight NCAA titles prior to Truman’s streak.

Some of the other top teams at the meet on the men’s side besides Missouri S&T and Drury include Grand Valley State, St. Cloud State and Delta State, whom the Miners beat in a dual meet earlier this season and again at the New South Intercollegiate Swimming Championships last month. On the women’s side, the top challengers to unseat Drury include South Dakota, St. Cloud State and Minnesota State.

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