March 27, 2008
Day 1 Finals Results | Notes | Photo Gallery 
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. - At the 2007 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships, Auburn's Cesar Cielo swam 50 yards faster than anyone has ever done before. Thursday night, in the opening finals session of the 2008 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships, Cielo did it again.
The Auburn junior swam the leadoff leg of Auburn's victorious 200 freestyle relay in 18.47 seconds, shattering his previous record of 18.69 seconds. Cielo also clocked a time under his old record less than an hour later as he touched in at 18.52 seconds to win the 50 freestyle.
Auburn finishes the first day of the championship meet in fourth place with 97 points. Arizona is in the lead with 137, followed by Texas and California with 116 and 112, respectively. Stanford rounded out the top five with 93 points.
"After the disappointment of not getting our 400 medley relay in the championship final this morning, I thought the tam bounced back real well and swam really hard tonight," said head coach Richard Quick. "Of course, Cesar was amazing in the 200 freestyle relay leadoff and the 50 freestyle, absolutely amazing."
Quick pointed out that it is now becoming the norm for people to expect extraordinary performances from Cielo.
"When you break the NCAA record in the 50 freestyle by more than two tenths of a second, that is an extraordinary swim," said Quick. "What is becoming apparent is that he is so good that everybody just expects him to swim extraordinarily fast and that is the sign of a great, great athlete when people look for you to be that fast every time."
As for the 40-point deficit after the first day of competition, Quick says the team just has to come out ready to swim in the morning.
"We simply have to come in and perform in the morning, put some people in the championship final and try to scramble back into this meet one event at a time," said Quick.
The Tigers are in pursuit of their sixth-straight NCAA team title, trying to become the first team since Indiana from 1968-73 to accomplish the feat.
Cielo highlighted the first night of competition as he won his seventh and eighth NCAA titles, picking up new Auburn, NCAA and U.S. Open records along the way.
"It was crazy," said Cielo. "(Assistant Coach) Brett (Hawke) gave me a piece of paper before the race and told me not to open it until after the race and I opened it and it said 18.47. It was great. I felt great in the water today and it's a great start to the meet in winning the relay. It is our tradition, we win the relay every year and we are keeping the tradition alive."
Cielo was the only junior on the relay team as seniors Alexei Puninski, Luke Weniger and Scott Goodrich followed. The team clocked a 1:15.66 in the race, Auburn's fastest time of the season, to win Auburn's third 200 free relay title in a row.
"That was huge," said senior co-captain Goodrich. "We had a little bit of a rough morning, but to come back and win that just pumps everybody up. We are ready to rip now."
Cielo was not finished yet as he came right back in the 50 free to earn his eighth career NCAA title, touching in at 18.52 seconds and beating out his nearest competition by more than a half second.
"I've just been trying to go faster and faster and not think about time and then it just happened, you know, I have two of my best performances and I'm really happy," said Cielo. "I could not be happier about my results and my team and I think we're definitely ready to go the next few days."
With the 50 free title, Cielo is now just one short of the Auburn record for NCAA titles won by an individual. Auburn sprints coach Brett Hawke holds the honor after he won nine NCAA championships from 1997-99.
Senior Alexei Puninski also swam in the 50 free final, clocking a time of 19.38 to finish fourth. His time is a personal-best and ranks ninth all-time at Auburn.
In the 1-meter diving, Auburn's Kelly Marx and Dan Mazzaferro qualified for the consolation final. Marx led the duo as he finished 14th with a score of 325.75. Mazzaferro followed in 16th with a 306.45.
Head diving coach Jeff Shaffer was pleased with the performance of his two sophomores Thursday night.
"Overall, I thought they did a great first list and competed well," said Shaffer. "Kelly and Dan really performed each of their dives to the best of their ability in a very tough field. They really competed well, made a few mistakes in the consolations that cost us some points, but our strengths are in 3-meter and tower, so we are really looking forward to tomorrow."
Auburn closed out the finals session by winning the consolation final in the 400 medley relay, as the team of Kohlton Norys, Michael Silva, Puninski and Cielo finished ninth overall with a time of 3:08.60.
Indiana jumped out to an early lead in the race, pulling ahead by a full second after the butterfly leg, but Cielo came off in the anchor freestyle leg and swam a 41.97 split to give Auburn the win by nearly half a second.
In the morning preliminaries, Auburn also had swimmers trying to qualify in the other two events of the opening session, the 500 free and the 200 IM.
Will Dove was Auburn's top swimmer in the 500 free, touching in at 4:20.50 to finish 19th overall and miss qualifying for finals by less than a second. Dove's time is good enough for fifth all-time at Auburn.
Freshman Robert Looney also swam in the 500 free, clocking a 4:21.69 to finish 24th. His time is fast enough for eighth all-time at Auburn.
Sophomore Tyler McGill nearly qualified for the consolation finals in the 200 IM, finishing in a tie for 16th with a time of 1:46.04. But, McGill lost in a swim-off with Texas' Caleb McDermott to miss out on the finals appearance. His time is good enough for 10th all-time at Auburn.
Also competing in the 200 IM were freshman Andrew Mitchell (T19th, 1:46.33) and sophomore Silva (42nd, 1:49.29).
Action in the 2008 NCAA Championships continues 2 p.m. CT Friday with preliminaries and finals at 9 p.m. CT. Events on Friday's schedule are the 200 medley relay, 400 individual medley, 100 butterfly, 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke, 100 backstroke, 3-meter diving and the 800 freestyle relay.
Fans can follow the meet this week with live stats at www.ncaaswim.com/men08/. A live video Web cast will also be available by going to www.SwimmingWorldMagazine.tv.
2008 NCAA Men's Swimming and Diving Championships
Champions and Auburn Results
200-Yard Freestyle Relay
1 - Cielo (18.47), Puninski (18.95), Weniger (19.31), Goodrich (18.93) - 1:15.66
500-Yard Freestyle
1 - Sebastien Rouault (Georgia) - 4:09.48
200-Yard Individual Medley
1 - Darian Townsend (Arizona) - 1:42.72
50-Yard Freestyle
1 - Cesar Cielo - 18.52
4 - Alexei Puninski - 19.38
1-Meter Diving
1 - Chris Colwill (Georgia) - 407.25
14 - Kelly Marx - 325.75
16 - Dan Mazzaferro - 306.45
400-Yard Medley Relay
1 - Arizona (Subirats, Barnes, Townsend, Greenshields) - 3:04.43
9 - Norys (47.57), Silva (53.84), Puninski (45.22), Cielo (41.97) - 3:08.60