November 1, 1999.....Contact: John Kean.....Phone: 573-341-4140

SWIMMERS OPEN SEASON WITH CONVINCING WINS

The 1999-2000 University of Missouri-Rolla swimming season opened in fine fashion Saturday, as the Miners won all but one event in winning both ends of a double dual meet over Washington University and Illinois Wesleyan.

UMR got two individual victories from David Nurre (Lewisville, Texas) in the 200- and 500-yard freestyle events. He posted a time of 1:46.48 in the 200 and 4:53.80 in the 500. The Miners also got wins from Dave Belleville (Chesterfield, Mo./Marquette) in the 50-freestyle in a time of 21.72 seconds; Sean Garceau (San Diego, Calif./Mount Carmel) in the 200-individual medley in 2:01.28; Matt Scott (St. Louis, Mo./DeSmet) in the 200-butterfly in 1:59.03; and Jeremy Evans (Bloomington, Ill.) in the 100-freestyle in 47.98 seconds.

In addition, the Miners got wins from Ben Karstens (Littleton, Colo./Dakota Ridge) in the 200-backstroke in 2:00.42 and Bruno Amizic (Split, Croatia) in the 200-breaststroke in 2:12.86.

Both UMR relay teams won as well. The 400-medley relay team of Josh Jolly (Conway, Ark.), Amizic, Scott and Belleville won in a time of 3:34.83, while the 400-freestyle relay team of Belleville, Nurre, Mike Lach (Lenexa, Kan./Shawnee Mission West) and Evans posted a winning time of 3:11.10.

The Miners got second place finishes from Vanja Dezelic (Zagreb, Croatia) in the 1,000-yard freestyle -- the only event a Miner did not win -- Karstens in the 200-freestyle, Jeff Raggett (Germantown, Tenn.) in the 200-butterfly and Garceau in the 200-breaststroke.

UMR will compete this weekend in a two-day meet at Truman State University. The Miners will face the Bulldogs in a dual meet Friday, then take on Lewis and South Dakota in dual meets on Saturday in Kirksville.