KIRKSVILLE, Mo.—The Truman men's and women's swimming teams defeated their conference rival Missouri-St. Louis Friday night in Kirksville. Originally, the two had been scheduled to meet at an invitational at McKendree but the event was rescheduled to a dual and moved to Kirksville.
The men's team picked up their first win of the season with a 887-789 win, while the women won 986-781.
The men had a number of notable finishes, including Connor Neils breaking his own school record in the 200 back stroke with a time of 1:49.25. Mark Franz also broke his own school record in the 100 breast stroke by nearly a second with a time of 53.61 (his old record was 54.57). Noah May won the 200 fly in what was a photo finish over two Tritons.
In the 200 free relay, Truman took the top two spots with the team of Jacob Pocivasek-Jack McCormick-Jack McKenzie and AJ Kohler taking the top spot at 1:26.42. The team of Grant Lair-Adam Vaske-John Breen-Alex Burkhardt finished second at 1:26.68.
Kohler, Pocivasek and Vaske took the first three spots in the 100 freestyle.
Ginny Schranck won the 400 IM with a time of 4:33.82 and Mary Wilkinson finished second; while Christina Jurotich took fourth. Natalie Galluzzo and Allison Garrett took the first two spots in the 200 IM.
Galluzzo also took first place in the 100 breast stroke with a time of 1:05.23. In the 1000 freestyle Madison Nguyen took first place at 10:37.30 and Abby Bomball took second at 10:38.65.
The 400 freestyle relay was a photo finish as the team of Lexi Krogman, Garrett, Lexi Poe and Sarah Nelson took first place at 3:34.32, beating out second place by less than second.
Emma Brabham won the 50 freestyle and 100 freestyle, as well as being part of winning relay team in the 200 and 400 yard medley.
Following the event, coach Jerod Simek said, "The team had some really impressive times after rebounding to our other meet being canceled earlier this week. We kept focus and the right energy through the rest of the week and I think that really showed in the swims today. We had 2 new school records on the men's side in the 100 breast by Mark Franz and in the 200 back by Connor Neils. Both lowered their previous bests by just under a second and two tenths of a second respectively. We also have multiple best times and swims that were right on their current best times. We are even more excited to finish out the year and come back to training with some more determination when we return after the holiday!"
The Bulldogs will be in action next in January when they host Missouri S&T on the 15th.
