COLUMBIA, Mo., Oct. 20. THE Texas A&M swim teams split yesterday with the University of Missouri, winning the men's meet while losing the women's.
Men's Meet
The A&M team opened the 2001-02 dual meet season by defeating the University of Missouri 169.5-118.5 University Natatorium on Saturday afternoon.
The Aggies won eight of 14 events as well as the one-meter diving title in gaining a 1-0 record to start the season.
"Missouri is a good enough team that we knew we had to take care of our business," said assistant swimming coach Jay Holmes. "We put a lot of people in events that they needed to work on and they responded and did an excellent job. Missouri was very fired up and took it to us towards the beginning of the meet, but we came back and responded well to their success."
The Aggies started and finished the meet strongly, winning both the 200-yard medley to begin the meet and the 400 freestyle to end the competition. All-Americans Riley Janes and Matt Rose competed on both relay winners. The final relay event saw the Aggies set a pool record in a time of 3:03.84. Members of that foursome were Rose, freshman Dan Blanchard, Janes and senior Pat Kennedy.
Kennedy went on to set an individual pool record in the 100 backstroke with a time of 48.77. The time is a provisional qualifying mark for the NCAA Championships.
Freshman Alfredo Jacobo made an immediate impact by capturing both the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke in times of 58.19 and 2:07.96, respectively.
Senior diver Jesse Even defeated Missouri's Jamie Sweeny 178.2-170.2 to take the one-meter title, but fell short to Sweeny 210.8 to 200.95 in the three-meter event.
Junior Patrick Dideum rebounded from a tight loss in the 1,000 freestyle to capture the win in the 500 freestyle in 4:40.39.
Janes earned a third gold medal by capturing the 50-yard freestyle for A&M in a time of 21.28.
The meet against the Tigers marked the first time the Aggies have ever swam a dual meet in Columbia.
The Aggies will continue their season on Thursday, Oct. 25, by traveling to TCU for a dual meet with the Horned Frogs.
Women's Meet
Missouri's women had no trouble disposing of A&M,
191.5-108.5.
The Aggies won three swimming events on the day, led by All-American senior Clara Ho. Ho captured individual gold in both the 100 and 200-yard butterfly with times of 57.27 and 2:04.91, respectively. Her 100-yard swim set a new Missouri pool record as well.
Freshman Tiffany Moore captured A&M's other victory, a three-second win over Missouri's Molly Vetter in the 1000-yard freestyle.
"Clara winning two events was really nice for us," said head coach Steve Bultman. "I was also pleased with our medley relay which performed a lot better than yesterday. Missouri was definitely ready and swam very well. They were the better team today."
The Aggie divers were a perfect two-for-two on the springboards on Saturday. Two-time All-American Meghan Zack won double gold with wins on both the one-meter and three meter boards. Sarah Welker finished third on the one-meter, while Big 12 platform champion Katie Williams was third on the three-meter.