Missouri men swim to program-best finish at NCAA national meet

Missouri’s men’s swimming and diving team set programs records Saturday for the best finish and most points during the NCAA Division I men’s swimming and diving championship in Iowa City, Iowa.

The Tigers finished 11th overall with 132 1/2 points led by senior Sam Tierney, who will graduate as the program’s most decorated swimmer.

Tierney, a native of Plano, Texas, finished fifth in the 200-yard breaststroke, breaking his own school record during the preliminaries with a time of 1 minute, 51.78 seconds.

Tierney, who boasts six first-team and six honorable mention All-America swims in his career, claimed fourth in the 100 breaststroke Friday, matching Missouri’s best finish at the national tourney.

Senior Mark Darragh and sophomore Michael Chadwick also earned first-team All-America honors, joining Tierney and Kevin DeForrest (1979) as the only Tigers to achieve that feat.

Chadwick finished fifth in the 100 freestyle in a school-record 42.29, while Darragh capped his career with a seventh-place finish in the 200 butterfly.

Darragh broke his own school record in the preliminaries (1:41.76).

The trio helped Missouri best its 14th-place finish from 2013 and 95 total points from 2014.

This story was originally published March 28, 2015 at 11:32 PM with the headline "Missouri men swim to program-best finish at NCAA national meet."