Columbia News

The University of Missouri's swimming and diving teams finished the 2025 SEC Swimming and Diving Championships with their best performances of the event. Both the men's and women's squads placed 10th overall, with scores of 362.5 and 398 points, respectively.

Men's diving saw strong results in the platform finals. Collier Dyer achieved a career-best score of 417.90, earning fourth place and recording the third highest mark in program history. Tommaso Zannella also set a personal record with a score of 392.20, tying for fifth place and ranking seventh all-time at Missouri. Freshman Derek Colbert finished 14th with a score of 327.05, while Deacon Colbert placed 24th with a score of 284.45.

On the women's side, Zara Zallen completed her preliminary swim in the 100 freestyle in 48.14 seconds, marking the fourth fastest time in school history and qualifying her for the A-final, where she finished sixth with a time of 48.31 seconds. Graduate student Sierra Smith swam a final time of 49.19 seconds to finish in 24th place.

In distance events, all three competitors from Missouri set top-10 program times in the women's 1650 freestyle. Sophomore Zoe Schneider posted the third fastest time ever at Missouri (16:13.62) to take 14th place; Peyton Drexler recorded the fourth-fastest time (16:19.19) for a 16th-place finish; Danielle Gleason secured the sixth-fastest program mark (16:20.06), finishing in 19th place.

Jibran Himsieh earned a spot among Missouri’s top ten performances in men’s distance swimming by finishing his race in 15:21.82—the seventh fastest time on record at Mizzou.

Freshman Luke Nebrich made his second finals appearance at his first conference championships by finishing 22nd in the men's 100 freestyle (42.66). His preliminary swim set a new personal best and marked the fifth fastest time in school history at 42.53 seconds. Grant Bochenski took home a 24th-place finish with his final swim of 43.09 seconds; his prelims performance was clocked at 42.73 seconds—seventh best on Mizzou’s all-time list.

Both relay teams achieved season-best marks and NCAA B-Cut qualifying times during their respective races: The women’s team—Zallen, Katie Kuehn, Karolina Bank, and Smith—posted an eighth-place finish (3:15.03), while Francois Malherbe, Bochenski, Ethan Vance, and Nebrich led the men’s team to ninth place (2:50.28).

Holley Dennis concluded her collegiate conference career by placing sixteenth in the women’s 200 breaststroke (2:14.10). John Watson made his first finals appearance at this meet with a twenty-second-place result in the men’s event (1:55.50).

The Tigers will next compete as hosts for the Mizzou Qualifier on March 1-2 at Mizzou Aquatic Center.