Lee’s Summit swimmer Sam Drew gets win this time at Missouri state meet
Sam Drew was so close last year he could taste it.
The Lee’s Summit standout swimmer fell one-hundredths of a second short of winning the 100-yard breaststroke at last year’s Missouri boys swimming and diving state championships. But he left no doubt this time around, beating teammate Andy Huffman by just over a second to capture that elusive breaststroke state title Saturday at the St. Peters Rec-Plex.
“It was a super-exciting race, especially after last year,” Drew said. “So, this is a really satisfying win, especially being my senior year. This is closure.”
The fact Drew got to go 1-2 with his teammate made it even sweeter.
“I was hoping for that, but I wasn’t sure if it was gonna happen,” Drew said. “He really pulled it out. It was awesome to stand up there with my teammate.”
For Lee’s Summit North junior Liam Bresette, it was a return trip to the top of the medal stand, but it was every bit as exciting as the others.
Bresette successfully defended his title in the 500 freestyle, and he did it in record-breaking fashion. Bresette’s time of 4:24.68 was more than five seconds faster than his winning time last year and shattered the 14-year-old state record of 4:27.89 set by Matt Beasley of Parkway South.
“It’s really awesome,” Bresette said. “I put in a lot of work. All the guys who I raced had an amazing race as well.”
Beasley is now the coach at Kirkwood and was in the house to see his record go down. He congratulated Bresette on breaking the mark and happily posed for a photo with the new record holder.
“That,” Bresette said, “was really awesome.”
The other area swimmer to win a title Saturday was Kearney sophomore Evan Holt in the 200 freestyle. Holt’s time of 1:39.94 was eight seconds faster than last year’s state meet, when he finished 20th.
“It feels really good,” Holt said. “I never thought this would happen.”
Like Drew later in the meet, Holt went 1-2 with a teammate. Kearney junior Austin Wolfe swam a 1:41.69 and finished second.
“I thought it would happen, but I wasn’t sure what the order would be,” Holt said. “It’s just really cool that we got 1-2.”
The Blue Springs South senior quartet of Nick Keller, Kyle Hepting, Ben Morgan and Jake Workman was victorious in the 200 freestyle relay with a time of 1:26.14.
“It’s a huge honor to be a part of that relay team,” Hepting said. “We’ve built that relay since freshman year. We’ve got a really close bond with each other. It’s just a real awesome thing.”
The Jaguars also had the top finish by an area team with 210 points, just 17 behind champion Cape Central. Kearney also took home a team trophy with a fourth-place finish at 178 points. The second-place finish for Blue Springs South equaled its highest finish ever in 2013.
“Our motto today was beat somebody that beat you yesterday,” Jaguars coach Errich Oberlander said. “Man, we really took that to heart today and had a great day. It was a lot of fun.”
This story was originally published November 5, 2016 at 8:29 PM with the headline "Lee’s Summit swimmer Sam Drew gets win this time at Missouri state meet."