December 5, 1999.....Contact: John Kean.....Phone: 573-341-4140
NINE MINERS QUALIFY FOR NATIONALS AT LITTLE ROCK SWIM MEET
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.--Nine members of the University of Missouri-Rolla swimming team made the automatic qualifying cuts for the NCAA Division II Championships during the Arkansas-Little Rock Invitational held over the weekend.
Three of the qualifying times established new school records as well, while a fourth time also surpassed one of the marks that was broken on Friday.
Sophomore Dave Belleville set a new record in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 20.53 seconds during the preliminary round. The old record was 20.62, established by Jeff Kuta in 1992.
The time Belleville posted in the 50-freestyle was only 0.04 seconds shy of the qualifying time for the 2000 United States Olympic Trials. He finished second in the finals with a time of 20.80 seconds, which took place a short time after he had to compete as part of the 200-freestyle relay team which the Miners were trying to get qualified for nationals.
The other new records were established by Bruno Amizic in his winning performances in the breaststroke events. Amizic posted a mark of 57.14 seconds in the 100-yard breaststroke finals Friday to break the previous record of 57.77 held by Derek Coon. That record was the oldest standing school record in a swimming event heading into the meet.
Amizic went on to break the 200-breaststroke record of 2:04.91 the next day when he posted a time of 2:04.86 in another first place showing.
Jeremy Evans also surpassed Coon's time in the 100-breaststroke in the preliminary round with a time of 57.59 seconds and also qualified for nationals in the process.
The fourth Miner to qualify on an individual basis was David Nurre, who broke his own personal best with a time of 1:41.76 on Saturday. He had tied his best-ever time in the event the previous night in the leadoff leg (200 yards) of the 800-yard freestyle relay that the Miners won in a time of 6:54.63. Nurre had a 1:41.94 mark Friday.
Nurre qualified in that relay with Steve Caruso, Vanja Dezelic and Belleville. Belleville also helped the other two relay teams qualify, swimming the leadoff leg of the 200-yard freestyle relay team and as the anchorman of the 400-yard medley relay team.
The 200-free relay team of Belleville, Tom Beccue, Josh Jolly and Mike Lach posted a time of 1:23.65 -- missing the school record by less than one-half of a second -- while the 400-medley relay team of Jolly, Evans, Matt Scott and Belleville had a time of 3:26.93.
UMR's 400-freestyle relay team of Nurre, Beccue, Lach and Belleville also qualified Saturday with a time of 3:06.17. However, the 200-medley realy team did not qualify despite winning the event in a time of 1:35.51 -- just over a second off the standard. The winning team consisted of Jolly, Evans, Caruso and Belleville.
The Miners also got a second place showing from Scott in the 200-butterfly in 1:56.40 after he just missed the cut in that event during the prelims. Meanwhile Sean Garceau narrowly missed the national cut in the 200-breaststroke in the prelims. He finished third in the finals.
The Miners won four of the relays in the meet and finished second in the 400-medley relay.
The Miners finished second in the team standings to Southwest Missouri State with 670 points. The difference was the 130 points scored by the Bears in the diving events, where the Miners had no competitors.