A revitalized Drury men's and women's swimming squad delivered a sweep of NCAA Division I Missouri State, winning the men's meet 127-116 and the women's dual 147-94 Thursday night at the Breech Pool.
The men's meet came down to the Panthers' showing in the 400 Free Relay, the night's final event. Needing at least a second and third-place finish from its two entries, the DU foursome of Chris Kohler, Sergei Bilyov, Michael Winiewicz and Carlos Viveros won the event to take the meet.
Drury won all 11 of the women's swimming events, with Missouri State capturing the two diving competitions, and on the men's side, the Panthers - five-time defending national D-II champions - took seven of the 11 swim races.
"I'm proud of both squads simply because they put a lot of effort in from the top down," Drury coach Brian Reynolds said. "Every kid stepped up with their very best effort tonight ... I couldn't be happier with that.
"It was great to see a J Kim win three times tonight, but the rest of them ... for a Jessie Lawrence to be in fifth at one point and come back to finish second in 200 Breast ... we just had efforts all over the place like that tonight. I knew our girls would be strong because we're full-force right now. I'm just really proud of the effort level from all of the kids tonight."
Sophomore Jun Han Kim was the star for the DU men, capturing the 200 IM, 200 Fly and 200 Breast. Other individual Panther victories came from freshman Chris Jacobsen in the 1000 Free, freshman Carlos Viveros in the 200 Free and sophomore Mark Grijalva in the 500 Free.
Standouts for the defending national champion DU women - sophomore Erin Dolan won both the 1000 and 500 Free events, freshman Tiffany Van Dongen captured the 200 Free and 200 Back and junior Li Tao won the 50 Free and 200 Fly. Other Drury individual wins came from Li in the 200 IM, senior Jing Hua in the 100 Free and senior Abbey Musch in the 200 Breast.
Drury, swimming for the first time against an opponent since the first week of December, avenged losses to Missouri State on Oct. 31 at the Hammons Student Center Pool, when the Bears won the men's meet 165-78 and the women's dual 147-95. But the Panthers were without several key figures in that meet, including reigning NCAA-II National Swimmer of the Year Juan Qing Li (illness).
Both Panther squads return to action on Saturday, when they host Truman State in a dual meet at 1 p.m. at Breech in the final home meet of the season.
Video Highlights Of Men's Clinching 400 Free Relay
Video Highlights Of Li Tao's Victory In Women's 50 Free
Results