The Texas A&M men’s swimming and diving team will host the SMU Mustangs on Friday in their last meet before the start of championship season in February.
The Aggies are 6-1 on the season and coming off a 189-107 win over LSU last Saturday.
“With a win, however you get it, it’s always great,” head coach Jay Holmes said. “I told some people earlier it wasn’t a pretty win, a lot of our events didn’t look real pretty, but we did what we needed to do. We got the wins up. We got to go over to Baton Rouge and take care of them.”
The Aggies had four 1-2-3 finishes and a 1-2-3-4 victory against LSU. Felipe Rizzo won the 1000 free (9:28.16), with Jake Gibbons (9:33.86) and Gus Karau (9:43.57) following. In the 100 breast, Mauro Castillo (54.55) took first place, Raiz Tjon-A-Joe (56.13) earned second and Tanner Olson (56.21) placed third. Brock Bonetti (1:46.88) led Jose Martinez (1:48.59) and Benjamin Walker (1:49.96) in the 200 fly. In the 50 free, Adam Koster (20.48) came in first place, Justin Morey (20.79) followed in second and Mike Thibert (20.84) placed third.
Koster (44.92) also earned first in the 100 free, with Thibert (45.60) following in second. Steven Richardson (45.98) earned third place and Connor Long (46.31) placed fourth.
Other winners in the LSU meet include Bonetti in the 200 IM (1st, 1:49.65) and 200 back (1st, 1:45.38), Castillo in the 100 fly (1st, 48.42), Walker in the 200 breast (1st, 1:58.85), Olson in the 200 breast (2nd, 2:01.98), Rizzo in the 500 free (1st, 4:30.95), Sam Thornton in the one meter diving (1st, 359.6), Kurtis Mathews in the one meter diving (2nd, 341.10) and Anthony Kim in the 100 back (1st, 48.37) and 200 back (2nd, 1:48.97).
“Anthony in the 100 back did better than what I expected,” Holmes said. “That one was really well executed and came down to the last stroke.”
Holmes said Bonetti’s win in the 200 fly came as a nice surprise as it’s not his usual event.
“He didn’t swim the 100 back, which he historically has always done for us,” Holmes said. “He did the 200 fly. That’s an event that he’s pretty relatively new to. For him to get up and win it like he did and win start to finish the whole way, pretty much since he dove in I knew he was going to win it.”
SMU is 1-3 and coming off a close 158-122 loss to Northwestern.
“SMU is another rivalry,” Holmes said. “LSU and SMU, those are the normally the teams that we always have second semester. There’s a lot of history there. Whenever I swam here at A&M many years ago, our meet with them was always something that we looked forward to. I’m really looking forward to a lot of really fast swimming.”
Holmes will use this meet to make decisions on the members of his team for the SEC Championships.
“That’s always one of the hardest things I think for any coach is that they have to make those decisions for your team,” Holmes said. “You’re going to leave some people at home and they’re not going to be on deck, they’re not going to be competing for points. This is our last chance to see everybody before we make those final decisions. I’m really expecting some great racing from within our own team.”
The Aggies will take on the Mustangs at 7 p.m. Friday at the Rec Center Natatorium.