The A&M men’s and women’s teams defeated the LSU Tigers 158-140 and 179-107 respectively in a closely fought contest.
This win was the men’s team’s first win of the season in SEC play and second win this season. It now stands 1-3 against SEC opposition and 2-4 overall. The women’s team has now gone 7-1 overall this season with its only loss coming last week against Auburn.
It was a one-way sailing for the women’s team who won all 16 events in the meet.
“The meet went well and I was real pleased,” head coach Steve Bultman said. “We swam a solid lineup and had some very good swims. We have the next weekend off and then back to back meets. We are preparing well for the SEC championships.”
Six of the 16 wins were courtesy of two individual wins each from swimmers Cammile Adams and Breeja Larson and diver Rebecca St. Germain. Adams won the 200 butterfly and the 400 individual medley with timings of 1:56.42 and 4:12.57 respectively, while Larson won the 100 and 200 breaststroke events with timings of 59.77 and 2:08.72 and St. Germain won both the diving events with scores of 319.20 on the three-meter dive and 295.73 on the one-meter dive. The relay team also won both the 200 free and the 200 medley relay with times of 1:31.65 and 1:40.54 respectively.
”It was the most exciting home meet this year, Adams said. The girls did a great job stepping up and swimming after some hard Christmas training. It was awesome to see such a large 12th Man come out and support us. We are really looking forward to the SEC meet in about four and a half weeks.”
The other individual wins for the Aggies came courtesy of Sarah Henry in the 1000-freestyle, Liliana Ibanez in the 200-freestyle, Paige Miller in the 100 backstroke, Erica Dittmer in the 50-freestyle, Sammie Bosma in the 100-freestyle, Tess Simpson in the 200-backstroke, Maureen McLaine in the 500-freestyle and Caroline McElhany in the 100-butterfly events.
However, it was not all smooth sailing for the men’s team. The competition went right down to the wire. Heading into the penultimate round, the Aggies were trailing 129-133. But they came up with a stellar performance to secure a 1-2-3 finish courtesy of Simon Frank (3:59.33), Omar Enriquez (3:59.54) and Hayden Duplechain (4:00.74) to take the lead into the final round. The meet was then settled in the last event which was the 200-freestyle with the A&M relay team winning with a time of 1:19.98.
The men’s team won eight events in total, seven individual and one in the relay event. The first win for the Aggies on the day came in the third event when John Dalton who won the 200-freestyle event.
”Today really showed the character of our team. We fought well and that was what the coach was trying to get out of us, to fight till the end,” Dalton said. ”It was great to get our first win in the SEC. This whole team is really special. Our senior batch is now 4-0 against LSU which is really sweet’. It was great from start to the finish. This gives us confidence going into the next game against SMU and into the conference championship.”
Dalton also won the 100-freestyle with a timing of 44.34. Alexandros Theocharidis secured two important victories for the Aggies by winning both the 100-backstroke and 200-backstroke events with a timing of 49.64 and 1:48.71.
The other individual wins came courtesy Ford McLiney in the one-meter dive, Enriquez in 500-freestyle and Henrik Lindau in the 100-butterfly.
The A&M women’s team now take on North Texas at Denton, Texas on the first of February while the men’s team play host to SMU on the 25th of January.