Men's NCAA Day 2
2008-03-29
Jeff Grace
While Texas purposely won't recruit foreigners, they were certainly in charge. Croats, Venezuelans, Slovenians, Frenchmen, Brazilians, and South Africans are dominating the US College Champs after two days of racing
Throughout the first night of competition it was a tight race in the team standings between Arizona, Texas and California. Going into the second night of competition Arizona had positioned themselves perfectly to pull away from the rest of the field with 12 top 8 swims compared to 7 for Texas and 4 for California.

4x50 yard medley relay

Going into the second evening of competition Auburn was fourth in team points and needed a swim to energize their team. They got one in the 200 yard medley finishing in a NCAA record of 1:23.24, thirteen one hundredths of a second faster than the standard they set last year.

"It feels great. It's exactly what this team needed to get us pumped up, fired up," said Senior Scott Goodrich who swam the backstroke. "We got together as a team earlier and we knew that we had a shot at getting this record. It was the same four guys who set it last year so it made it that much better. We decided to just go in and attack it from the get go."

Arizona finished second in a time of 1:24.08 followed by Cal who finished in a time of 1:24.50.

400 yard Individual Medley

The 400 IM is considered by many to be one of the most exciting events in the sport of swimming, because of how many times a lead can change due to the different strengths of the swimmers in the event. Michigan's Alex Vanderkaay made the race a little less intriguing by ensuring that there would be no lead changes.

Vanderkaay, who collected Michigan's first win of the meet had a simple plan, "I knew I had to go out after it. It was the only way to do it," explained Vanderkaay "I was hurting on that last hundred, but I was able to hold of Sebastien [Rouault]."

"It feels really good to bring one home for Michigan. I left everything I had in the pool."

Georgia's Sebastien Rouault finished with an extremely strong last 100 yard freestyle to come second in a time of 3:42.25 followed by Florida's Bradley Ally who finished third in a time of 3:43.68.

100 yard Butterfly

In the 200 yard medley relay Alexei Puninski of Auburn displayed his incredible speed by splitting 19.81 in the 50 yard butterfly, but to win the 100 yard event he was going to have defeat the NCAA record holder in the event Arizona?s Albert Subirats.

Puninski used his blazing speed in the first 50 going out in 20.60 opening up a huge lead on Subirats. The second half of the race was a different story, with Subirats not only erasing Puninski's half second lead going into the last 25, but he took a half second lead of his own touching the wall in a time of 45.07 followed by Puninski who touched in a time of 45.51.

Touching third was Stanford's freshmen standout Austin Staab in a time of 45.61.

200 yard freestyle

In the 200 freestyle Texas senior Matt McGinnis swimming in lane one took the first 100 out in 44.27 almost a whole second ahead of the rest of the field. At the 150 mark McGinnis continued to hang on to the lead, ahead of both his teammate Dave Walters and Arizona senior Darian Townsend who were both making a late charge.

In an incredible finish Walters was able to overtake his teammate touching in a time of 1:32.56, Townsend finished second in a time of 1:32.85 with McGinnis hanging on for the third with a finishing time of 1:32.93.

"I owe a lot of my success to Matt McGinnis, because he took the race out so fast," explains Walters. "I knew I was in second place and he was about a body length ahead of me. That made me think of it as one of our workouts, when I'm beside him. It made the pain go away and made the pressure of winning the race go away."

"It was a reminder of the work we put in throughout the season, and those workouts with him are what enabled me to finish so well."

100 yard breaststroke

In the 100 breaststroke Arizona's Marcus Titus and California's Damir Dugonjic pushed the pace in the first half of the race, but the second 50 belonged to Stanford junior Paul Kornfeld who finished with a phenomenal last 25 to touch in a time of 52.03. The early leaders Titus and Dugonjic battled each other in the right to the touch, but in the end would have to settle for a no decision. Both tied for second in a time of 52.61.

"It feels really good to get the win," said an ecstatic Kornfeld. "We haven't actually had a win in a while. We had nine second places last year. Hopefully this is a big morale booster for our team and we can springboard and keep building off it."

100 yard backstroke

Another event and another championship crown for Arizona senior Albert Subirats to defend. Unlike the 100 yard butterfly Subirats would not be able to make up a first half deficit to win his second individual event of the day.

Indiana senior Ben Hesen went out fast and finished fast, leaving no doubt who the top dog in the 100 backstroke was, "I could see I was ahead of some people, I couldn't see everybody but I had a good feeling I was in the lead. I just prayed I could hold on."

The larger than life Hesen felt that he owed a lot of his success to the support of his Indiana teammates and the Hoosier fans, "Before the race I looked up at my fans and team and knew I had to win. I had no choice. In my opinion they are the best and the wildest and that is just my style. I like it. I love it. It was great."

Subirats had a strong finish once again hitting the wall in a time of 45.40 out touching Cal's David Russell who finished in a time 45.42.

4x200 freestyle relay

The 800 freestyle relay may have been the most anticipated event of the evening. At the Big 12 conference championships the University of Texas men destroyed both the American and NCAA record.

The old NCAA record was owned by the University of Arizona and the Wildcat men were anxious to be able to go head to head with the Texas. To thicken the plot just a little more going into the final event of the evening Arizona was on top of the team rankings with Texas in second.

After the first 200 only five 100 hundredths of a second separated the two teams, but that would be the only point in the race where the two teams were close. Darian Townsend who swam the second leg for Arizona took out his first 100 in an incredible 43.85 and finished his 200 in a time of 1:31.79 giving his team a second and a half lead which they only added to in the last two legs of the race finishing in a time of 6:12.85 breaking a NCCA championship meet record.

"Obviously it would've been nice to get the record, but a win is a win," explains Townsend. "That's what we were looking for. We haven't broken any NCAA relay records this meet, but we're winning the meet and that's what counts. Texas blew it open earlier this semester by breaking our record-they smashed our record- and hats off to them, they did really well, but we knew going into NCAAs that it was going to be a different story. We just went out there and raced; we were a team."

Texas finished second in a time of 6:16.54 followed by Tennessee who finished in a time of 6:20.61.

Going into the final day of competition Arizona has built up an impressive lead finishing the evening with 376 points, Texas was second with 285 points and Stanford who had an incredible evening is sitting in third with 231 points.