MU swims past Jayhawks in dual

By Benton Smith     Oct 27, 2007

Missouri beat Kansas University in the swimming and diving version of the Border War, but KU coach Clark Campbell wasn’t devastated.

“We were a lot better than we were last week,” Campbell said after the Tigers won nine of 16 events and outpointed KU, 164-136, Friday at Robinson Natatorium. “We just ran into a Missouri team that was faster than us. You can only control what you can control, and I thought our team did a great job of swimming well for this point in the season.”

Last week, KU placed fourth in the Big 12 Relays at Iowa State, behind third-place Missouri.

Facing the Tigers in a dual, however, gave the Jayhawks extra motivation, junior captain Danielle Herrmann said.

“Throughout this whole week the team was revved up and real excited to face Mizzou,” she said.

The sixth-year KU coach agreed.

“It really gets our kids excited to swim fast,” Campbell said of the Border War. “What’s going to be important is getting better every week.”

It was easy to spot the top swimmer for KU (1-1 in duals, 0-1 in Big 12) Friday. Junior Maria Mayrovich won the 50, 100 and 200 freestyle races and teamed with senior Terri Schramka, junior Ashley Leidigh and sophomore Emily Lanteigne to win the 400 freestyle relay.

“Maria Mayrovich swam out of her mind,” Campbell said, noting that her 200 time of 2:04.75 was a Robinson record. “That’s got to be one of the fastest times in the country.”

Campbell said Mayrovich – from Novorossiysk, Russia – would swim for her home country in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Other KU winners were Leidigh, 200 butterfly; freshman Erin Mertz, one-meter diving; and Herrmann, 200 individual medley.

Herrmann said she wasn’t overly happy about her victory.

“It’s one of my favorite races, but for where we are in the season we just want to compete as a team and go out there and do the best we can,” she said.

Campbell agreed, saying that the team had a long way to go this season.

“This year, with it being an Olympic year,” he said, “it’s really long, and we changed our approach to training in that we wanted a more gradual build-up to be more in peak form in February, March (for conference and NCAA championships) and April (Toyota Grand Prix at Stanford), and June is Olympic trials.”

KU will hold another dual Thursday against Arkansas at 4 p.m.

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