Monday, March 3, 2008

SMU men’s swimming and diving wins third-straight Conference USA title

By Pegasus News wire

The No. 20 SMU men's swimming and diving team ended the Conference USA Invitational much the way it began the meet: with total domination. The Mustangs won their third C-USA crown Saturday night in Houston, tallying their 12th consecutive conference championship overall.

SMU posted 10 career-fastest swims Saturday en route to the championship, notching eight NCAA `B' cuts and three meet records.

Chris Ginder started the Mustangs off, swimming the 1650 in a season-best 15:56.23, good for fourth place.

Pontus Renholm swam an NCAA `B' cut in the 200 back, touching the wall in a career-fastest 1:45.36, taking first place. Maverick Smalley earned bronze in the event, clocking a personal best of 1:51.36. Colton Ingraham also notched a new personal best, touching in at 1:54.24.

The Mustangs kept it rolling by finishing one-two-three in the 100 free. Luka Vrtovec earned NCAA consideration by clocking a time of 43.91 to win first. Thomas Fadnes took second in 44.11, a career-best and NCAA `B' cut. Shane Milu won third, touching the wall in 44.75, setting a new career mark. Greg Doughty finished seventh in 45.87, while Travis Callaghan finished eighth in a season-best 46.12.

Alex Hetland continued to dominate the breaststroke events, winning the 200 breast in a career-fastest and meet record 1:58.81. Hetland's time also earned him NCAA consideration. Mitchell Johnson turned in a season-fastest 2:02.12, earning him bronze in the event. Jerr Merritt swam a season-best 2:05.25, good for fifth place, and Daniel Veale finished seventh in 2:08.35. Grega Plevelj also turned in a season-fastest time in the consolation finals, touching the wall in 2:05.57.

Nate Clark poured on the speed to win the 200 fly in a career-fastest and NCAA `B cut time of 1:46.08. Brett Denham also swam a career-best mark of 1:51.92.

Freshman diver Matt Culbertson turned in another brilliant performance, taking a very strong bronze finish in the platform finals. Culbertson tallied 328.40 for his dives, a career-high mark. Landon Owen also had a strong outing, taking fifth place with a score of 162.60.

The Mustangs wrapped it up by swimming a season-fastest 400 free relay. Fadnes, Milu, Vrtovec and Clark went out with a bang, notching a meet and pool record time of 2:55.94 to win the event, qualifying them for NCAA consideration.

SMU won the meet with a team score of 968.5. Hawai'i took second with 819, followed by East Carolina with 651.5 and Cal State Bakersfield with 448.

Eddie Sinnott was named C-USA Men's Swimming Coach of the Year and Alex Hetland was honored as C-USA Men's Swimmer of the Meet.

"Tonight we put the finishing touches on an outstanding meet," said Sinnott. "The evening was marked by Alex's 200 breast performance and Nate's 200 fly. Nate swam with a lot of heart and gave us a really big win. The divers did great on the platform and we had a fast relay to top it off. We're positioned to finish the year with the exciting opportunity to score in all five relays at NCAAs, which we haven't done in many years. I think we're set up well. We have a month to go and in that time, we need to stay healthy and wise. It will be exciting to see how we match up with the rest of the country. This meet was seven sessions well-executed. The seniors did a great job of leading us tonight and it was fun to watch. It's fun to coach this team."

The Mustangs have a few weeks off before heading to Zone Diving March 14-16 and to the NCAAs March 27-29 in Seattle, Wa.

Source: SMU

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