Tigers in the Pool

Auburn leads after day one of swimming NCAA Championship

March 15, 2007

By Emily Wickstrom

Special to CSTV.com

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - On the shoulders of its sprint freestyle swimmers, Auburn leads in dominating fashion after the first day of competition at the NCAA Men's Swimming and Diving Division I Championships at the University of Minnesota. The Tigers won two of the session's six events to tally 187 total points after day one.

Arizona is in second with 121 points, while Texas is third with 107. Northwestern and Florida are tied for fourth with 106 points, while Stanford is sixth with 100.

Auburn sophomore Cesar Cielo's split (18.69)  to lead off the 200 yard freestyle relay was the fastest time ever swam, jump-starting the Tigers' foursome of Cielo, Matt Targett, Scott Goodrich and Bryan Lundquist to win the event and set a new NCAA record (1:14.71).  The time also broke the American, US Open and pool records.

"It's a pretty awesome and impressive performance," Lundquist said. "I have had 1.14:99 on my water bottle all year as our goal, and to beat that was pretty impressive. I was surprised we even beat that, so it was great."

The Tigers had already broken the previous NCAA record by swimming 1:15.56 in the preliminaries, but handily beat their own time in the finals. Stanford finished second in the 200 free relay (1:15.97), while Arizona placed third (1:16.26). Rounding out the top eight were Northwestern (1:16.65), Texas (1:17.45), California (1:17.68), West Virginia (1:18.78) and Florida (1:18.89).

Southern California senior Larsen Jensen easily won the 500 freestyle, finishing in a time of 4:09.80 for the third-fastest performance of all time in the event. The time shattered Jensen's previous personal best in the 500 free, which was 4:13.52. It is Jensen's second individual NCAA Championship after winning the 1,650 free in 2005.

"Obviously it's a good feeling," Jensen said. "I am excited at how my training has been going the last few weeks and coming to NCAAs with my team and doing the best I can. I am looking forward to going out to Melborne to swim in the World Championships... USC is a great program and over the next few years I expect a national championship."

Stanford senior Shaun Phillips placed second in the 500 free in 4:13.07, while freshman Jean Basson of Arizona was third (4:13.44). Michigan scored 23 points in the event on the performances of Matt Patton (4:14.91, fourth) and Alex Vanderkaay (4:15.75, sixth). Texas also scored two swimmers in Michael Kleuh (4:14.95, fifth) and Matt McGinnis (4:16.14, seventh). Sebastien Rouault of Georgia rounded out the scoring by placing eighth (4:23.12).

The 200 yard individual medley had one of the night's closest finishes, with Arizona senior Adam Ritter (1:41.72) defeating Northwestern senior Matt Grevers (1:41.96) for the title. It was Ritter's first individual NCAA title after winning three previous NCAA relay titles. His time was the third fastest ever in the event trailing Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte.

"That's some select company," Ritter said. "I know Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte are the two guys ahead of me and those are guys I have looked up to and I haven't got a lot of chances to race. But obviously those are the two best IMers in the world, so to be mentioned in the same sentence as them is an honor."

Florida took the three through five places in the 200 IM to score 45 points in the event. Sophomore Lucas Salatta took third in 1:43.69, and was followed by teammates Bradley Ally (1:43.85) and Shaune Fraser (1:44.93). Northwestern senior Mike Alexandrov (1:45.26), Virginia junior Pat Mellors (1:45.61) and Auburn junior James Wike (1:46.06) finished sixth through eight in the event.

In the 50 freestyle, sophomore Cesar Cielo of Auburn repeated his feat from the 200 free relay by matching his NCAA, US Open and pool record-time of 18.69 and smashing the rest of the field. Three swimmers - Auburn junior Matt Targett, Arizona junior Albert Subirats and Stanford senior Ben Wildman-Tobriner - tied for second with identical times of 19.08.

"It feels great," Cielo said. "Before today I was just trying to break 18 (seconds), but to break it four times and be one of the fastest guys in the (United) States was one of my dreams. It feels great to reach this level."

The Tigers had four swimmers in the finals of the 50 free to amass an astounding 61 points in the event. Scott Goodrich (19.29, fifth) and Bryan Lundquist (19.49, eighth) also scored for Auburn.

Garrett Weber-Gale of Texas (19.33) and Apostol Tsagkarakis of Alabama (19.48) were sixth and seventh.

In the 1-meter diving finals, Florida State freshman Terry Horner won the first-ever title in the event for the Seminoles with a score of 399.35. Hawaii junior Magnus Frick took second (395.05). Auburn scored two divers, with senior Steven Segerlin placing third (371.40) and freshman Kelly Marx taking sixth (345.70). Kellen Harkness of Ohio State (359.55, fourth), Eric Sehn of Texas A&M (347.45, fifth), Zach Schultz of Purdue (330.10, seventh) and Ruben Ross of Miami (315.15, eighth) rounded out the finals scorers.

"It was awesome, absolutely awesome," Horner said. "I came here and dove the best I could. I have no complaints about what happened. It's just amazing."

In the 400 medley relay, the day's final event, Northwestern won its first NCAA relay championship since 1932. The foursome of Matt Grevers, Mike Alexandrov, Kyle Bubolz and Bruno Barbic clocked in a NCAA record time of 3:04.40.

Texas placed second in 3:05.69, while Auburn was third in 3:06.09. Arizona (3:06.29), Tennessee (3:09.48), Florida (3:09.65), USC (3:12.38) rounded out the top seven. Stanford was disqualified because of an early take-off.

"I feel like it has been a long time coming; ever since Mike (Alexandrov) and I's sophomore year," Grevers said. "We have been in the lead after the third leg before, but we just needed someone like Bruno (Barbic) to come in and finish us off. It's really a great feeling of accomplishment."

The NCAA Championships resume tomorrow at 12 p.m. (CST) with preliminaries for the 200 medley relay, the 400 IM, 100 butterfly, 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke and 100 backstroke events.