Jan. 8, 2009
AUBURN, Ala. - The Auburn men's and women's swimming and diving teams dropped their first dual meets of the new year to Texas, with the No. 8 men falling 139-102 to the top-ranked Longhorns and the No. 7 women bowing 129-109 to No. 4 Texas Thursday afternoon at the James E. Martin Aquatics Center.
The Tigers did have a number of bright spots during the meet, with the swimmers collecting eight B-cut marks and the divers hitting eight zone qualifying scores over two days in the springboard events and also performing well in a platform exhibition.
Auburn opened and closed the meet with relay victories, with all four winning relay squads meeting the `B' standard. In the opening 400 freestyle relays, the men's team of Kohlton Norys, Michael Silva, Tyler McGill and Matt Targett had a winning time of 3:12.10, while the women's squad of Rachel Goh, Micah Lawrence, Ava Ohlgren and Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace clocked a time of 3:39.82.
"We clicked really well in the first race and put down a real good time, and I thought that was a good momentum builder, but we just didn't use that momentum," said men's interim head coach Brett Hawke. There were some races where we should have gotten our hand on the wall and didn't. There wasn't enough pride in these guys, and I really hope to see an improvement in the coming weeks."
The closing 400 freestyle relays saw the men's team of Gideon Louw, McGill, Norys and Targett win easily in 2:55.48, while the women's team of Vanderpool-Wallace, Caitlin Geary, Emile Ewing and Melissa Marik also breezed to victory in 3:19.55.
Lawrence also cruised to an easy win in the women's 200 breaststroke, clocking a `B' cut time of 2:12.93 which was more than seven seconds ahead of her nearest competitor. Josefine Wede was third in 2:21.26.
Ohlgren had a `B' cut in the women's 400 IM, placing second in 4:16.64. She just missed the `B' cut in the 200 butterfly with a time of 2:00.51, which also placed her second.
Micah Martindale met the `B' qualifying standard in the women's 500 freestyle, finishing second in 4:49.27.
"It's been a while since we've had a competition," said women's co-head coach Dorsey Tierney-Walker. "We were excited about real tough matchups. Texas has a phenomenal team. They were eager, you could tell, and we were excited to get some good races in. Coming off of some good training, I think we've made some progress. We need to continue to build and move forward from here."
Targett had a `B' cut and just missed an `A' cut in the men's 100 freestyle with a winning time of 42.40. Louw was third in 44.27.
In the diving events, which opened Wednesday with the 1-meter springboard, the Tigers had four Zone qualifying scores on the 3-meter board Thursday. Dan Mazzaferro was second in the men's event with a score of 392.62, while Kelly Marx was fourth with a mark of 370.56. Anna Aguero was third on the women's side with a score of 284.70 and Vanessa Dantin was fourth (281.78).
In the platform exhibition, Mazzaferro was second among the men's divers with a score of 421.80 while Marx posted a mark of 388.51. Aguero was second among the women (262.51) and Dantin was again fourth (242.71).
"Overall it was a very strong performance on our part," said head diving coach Jeff Shaffer. "That's our fifth competition in the last six days, so we're a little beat up, but I can still see a lot of progress and a lot of promise. Texas is a great team and it was very good for our team to go against such a quality opponent in January to help us continue to prepare for the SEC Championships. I thought we placed well on 1-meter and competed fairly well on 3-meter and platform, but the area that we need to go back and focus on is really finishing dives."
Also for the swimmers, Norys was also an individual winner, taking the men's 200 backstroke title with a time of 1:45.38 for Auburn.
McGill missed the `B' cut in the 200 butterfly by just .33 seconds, taking second place in 1:46.88 Marik just missed a `B' cut in the 200 freestyle with a second-place time of 1:48.56, as did Alana Dillette in the 100 freestyle with a runner-up time of 49.90.
In the 50 freestyle, Vanderpool-Wallace was second (23.26) in the women's race, while Louw placed second (20.34) for the men. Andrew Mitchell was second in the men's 200 IM in 1:49.66, Goh was second in the women's 200 backstroke in 1:59.40 and George Klein was second in the men's 200 breaststroke in 2:00.54.
The Tigers will be off until returning to action Jan. 24 against Florida. The meet begins at 12 p.m. CT at the James E. Martin Aquatics Center.