The men’s swimming and diving team for Texas A&M placed fourth in their Art Adamson Invitational held this weekend in College Station. No. 10 Stanford dominated the host and it’s contemporaries with a score of 1,523, followed by LSU (573), Grand Canyon (468), and A&M (460).
“It’s always good having different teams to compete against,” Aggie head coach Jay Holmes said. “For this weekend we had a good cross section of teams: some that we are fairly familiar with, and some that we don’t get a chance to see that often. The level of competition was pretty much what we expected it to be.”
Tyler Henschel sparked the Aggies on the boards with his battle against the 3-time defending champion from Stanford, Kristian Ipsen. Despite finishing with a score of 381.40 in the 1-meter, he finished just short of Ipsen, who registered a win with a 413.5.
“I am very pleased to see Tyler make an impact on the national scene in his first year of competing,” Aggie diving coach Jay Lerew said. “He has been a high level in Canada for the last three years and has international experience. NCAA division 1 diving is very international.”
No other event on the first day granted A&M more than a fourth place finish. Placing right at fourth for the Aggies was junior Cory Bolleter in the 50 freestyle, who established a NCAA “B” cut time for having a 20.13 race.
Bolleter would cap off the day alongside of Luke Shaw, Gonzalo Corazo and Alexandros Theocharidis in seventh place and 3:18.25 in the final event, the 400 medley relay.
Redshirt freshman Henschel sniffed the upset again on day two, this time being in the 3-meter. He was much closer, but Ipsen trumped him 415.90-404.15. A&M sophomore Zachary Stockton would have a 336.15 that would place him sixth for the second straight outing.
Two more NCAA “B” cut times were earned by the Aggies the second time around. Senior Hayden Duplechain had a 6^th finish in the 400 IM by clocking in with a 3:54.33, while Antoine Marc was 5^th in the 200 freestyle at 1:37.87.
Theocharidis, a native of Greece, got on board with a fifth place finish in the 100 back. He finished with a 49.17. Another contributing upperclassmen was senior Luke Shaw, who received 10^th in the 100 fly.
The final day was a one dominated by the Aggie freshman. Ahead of the pack, Henschel finally claimed first, but in the platform dive. His score of 398.35 went down as the fourth best in school history. The Canadians’ teammate Zachary Stockton achieved seventh.
Freshman Brock Bonetti and Mauro Castillo followed Henschel’s campaign with third in the 200 breaststroke and fourth in the 200 backstroke. Both would receive NCAA “B” cut with times at 1:58.35 and 1:44.85.
“We have pretty high expectations for this freshmen class,” Holmes said. They knew coming in that we would rely on them right away. Both Brock and Mauro’s races in the finals on Saturday were fun to watch. Both guys raced really hard. But the swimmer that we felt was the most consistent was junior Antoine Marc. He raced well throughout the entire meet. Antoine is a guy that we didn’t really recruit out of high school. He has made himself a real asset to our team.”
Another “B” cut was garnered by the senior Duplechain in the 200 butterfly. His 1:47.98 earned him a spot at sixth.
To finish the tournament, the Aggies placed fouth in the 400 free relay. Luke Shaw, Cory Bolleter, Antoine Marc and Justin Morey established their time of 2:57.21.
Up next for the Aggies is their conference opener against the Tennessee Volunteers on Jan. 8.
“These multiple-day invites are the only time we get to really simulate what a SEC or NCAA meet is like,” Holmes said. “Since we are ultimately judged by what happens at SEC’s and NCAA’s, we think it’s really important to compete in them.”