Missouri swimming struggles in standings despite breaking records
The Big 12 Championships continue into finals Friday night.
Published Feb. 26, 2009
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Senior Jeff Wolfert twists in the air during the one-meter springboard diving final Wednesday. Wolfert, best known as a former kicker on the football team, returned to his original sport of diving for the Big 12 Championships.
Missouri spent the first two days of the Big 12 Swimming and Diving Championships slashing school records in nearly every event but still found itself playing catch-up in the standings with Texas and Texas A&M.
"I told the team the strategy is to win up to the last day," coach Brian Hoffer said. "You don't have to win the first day, you just have to win by the last day."
The Tigers posted a men's team score of 241, putting them in third place and 156 points behind the pace of front-runner Texas.
The women's team's score of 209 was also good for third place and left them within 100 points of the Longhorns.
The Aggies rest in second place in both standings.
The first night of the competition saw the Tigers break school records in all five events.
Among the record-setting performances was Missouri's time of 7:03.77 in the women's 800-yard freestyle relay and junior Greg Destephen's record score of 363.65 in the men's 1-meter diving.
"We really focus on this meet more than any other meet by far," said senior Lori Halvorson, a member of the 800-yard free relay team. "I think a lot of what we've done all year ... really came out so we could break all these school records."
The second night of competition started with senior Jill Granger posting another school record, this one coming in the 500-yard freestyle as she touched the wall in 4:43.98. Her time was good for fifth place.
In the prelims of 200-yard individual medley, freshman Kayla Durnil posted a school-record 2:00.98. She failed to duplicate her performance in the finals, though, where Halvorson posted a personal-best 2:01.44.
As for the men's team, sophomore Jordan Hawley sprinted his way to a school record 19.72 in the men's 50-yard freestyle and earned fourth place in the process.
While acknowledging his accomplishment, Hawley still saw room for improvement.
"This morning I didn't as well as I wanted to," Hawley said. "Coming into tonight I really wanted to prove myself. I think 19.7 was a good time but I think I can be at 19.4."
In the process of breaking team and personal records, the Tigers also posted numerous NCAA cut times that may end up being good enough to place them in the national championship.
Hoffer noticed his team progression towards NCAA-level times.
"We are moving closer to that," Hoffer said. "We're getting there."
Missouri now heads into the last half of the tournament with finals starting 6 p.m. today.
Halvorson said she wanted the Tiger's momentum to carry on the last two days of the championships.
"We are looking for pretty much the same thing," Halvorson said. "I think we can get some top-three finishes and a few more girls a good chance to go to the NCAA's."
Hawley said the team's eyes are focused on who's above them in the standings, specifically the Aggies.
"We really want to beat Texas A&M," Hawley said. "That's been our focus all year for the men's team. We got beat by them last year and it left a bitter taste in our mouth."