Final Results

CLEVELAND, Miss. – A dominant performance by the Miners in the 200-yard breaststroke pushed Missouri S&T to front of the standings at the New South Intercollegiate Swimming Championships Saturday night and from there, the Miners were able to finish off their seventh consecutive meet title.

S&T had four of the top six finishers in the 200-breaststroke, led by Ethan Goldfarb (Arlington, Texas/The Oakridge School)'s victory in 2:01.20, to take over the lead in the standings with only two events remaining.  S&T also got a third place finish in that event from Aljaz Kerc (Ljubljana, Slovenia/Gimnazija Bezigrad) in 2:03.87, a fourth from Drew Larkins (Chesterfield, Mo./Parkway Central) in 2:05.04 and a sixth place effort from Andrew Simek (O'Fallon, Mo./Fort Zumwalt West) in 2:06.99 to move from a six and one-half point deficit to a 28½ point lead when the smoke cleared.

That performance was followed by a win by Andrew Schranck (Alton, Ill./Marquette Catholic) in the 200-yard butterfly, coupled with a fourth place finish by Ryan Gibson (Jackson, Mo./Jackson), that all but clinched the team title for the Miners.  Schranch posted a time of 1:51.70 and Gibson finished in 1:54.04.

From there, the Miners just needed to finish the 400-yard freestyle relay without being disqualified and did so with a third place finish from the team of Luke Norris (The Woodlands, Texas/The Woodlands), Keith Sponsler (Lincoln, Neb./Lincoln East), Kerc and Jacob Dole (Corbin, Ky./Country Day School) in 3:01.16.  S&T finished the meet with a total of 899.5 points, ending up 41½ points in front of a Delta State squad that led after each of the first three days of competition.

The final day of the meet also saw Matt Welsh (Wildwood, Mo./Lafayette) finish second in the 1,650-freestyle with a time of 15:58.71 and Jacob Dole (Corbin, Ky./Country Day School) lead a group of four among the top eight in the 100-yard freestyle with his second place showing in 45.34 seconds.

S&T also got a fifth place finish from Luke Norris (The Woodlands, Texas/The Woodlands) in 45.99, a sixth from Matt Zieger (St. Joseph, Mo./Central) in 46.17 and an eighth from Keith Sponsler (Lincoln, Neb./Lincoln East) in 46.91 seconds.  Ryan Layne (Houston, Texas/Cypress Creek) was fifth in the 1,650-free in 16:07.16 and Alfredo Martinez (Mexico City, Mexico/Instituto Cumbres San Javier) was seventh in that event in 16:19.51, while Nate Kamrath (Newburgh, Ind./Castle) took sixth in the 200-yard backstroke in 1:52.51.

In the consolation finals, Luis Nesrala (Santo Domingo, D.R./Colegio Amador) won the 200-backstroke in 1:56.02, while Sasha Stadnik (Overland Park, Kan./Blue Valley West) finished 11^th in the 1,650-freestyle as did Chris Stockmann (Beaumont, Texas/West Brook) in the 100-freestyle.

Missouri S&T head coach Doug Grooms was named as the NSISC's "Coach of Year" after guiding the Miners to the seventh straight meet title.

The NCAA Division II Championships will begin March 13 in Birmingham, Ala., as part of the NCAA's Winter Sports Festival.  The Miners have six automatic qualifiers for the national meet and figure to get at least a seventh into the meet in Goldfarb, who is ranked among the top six swimmers nationally in the 400-yard individual medley and 200-breaststroke, the two events he won over the weekend.