October 28, 2006
The Texas A&M men?â„¢s swimming and diving team dropped a 169-129 decision to No. 17 Notre Dame in dual meet action on Saturday at the Student Recreation Natatorium on the A&M campus.
The Aggies won four individual races and one relay in the pool and six-time Big 12 Champion Eric Sehn swept the dives to pace A&M?â„¢s effort.
Sehn, a junior from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, took the 1-meter springboard with a score of 332.25 and the 3-meter board with a total of 365.32 to run his record in dual meets in 2006-07 to 4-0.
Grabbing individual first-place finishes in the pool were senior Francisco Picasso, freshman Israel Duran, sophomore James Hard and junior Alejandro Jacobo.
"Overall, I was happy with our times and the way we competed," head swim coach Jay Holmes said. "I was very disappointed that we lost and the final score. This showed us a lot of things that we need to work on.
"I thought James Hard did a very good job today. He made a small mistake in the 1,000 and he ended up losing the race, but he corrected it in the 500 and won. He took off at the 350 yard mark and took the Notre Dame swimmer out of the race.
"Israel (Duran) was behind in his race until about seven yards left. He just kept charging and charging and was able to out-touch the Notre Dame swimmer. He's really good and he's going to help us a bunch.
"I'm really pleased with the way Alejandro (Jacobo) is swimming. I know he was disappointed that he didn't get the win in the breaststrokes, but he did a great job in the IM. He's much further along than he's ever been at this point in the season.
"We didn't even know if Francisco (Picasso) was going to be able to swim today. He woke up with some sort of a sickness, but came through because we needed him to."
Picasso struck gold in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 20.93. Duran tallied his fourth first-place finish of the season with a victory in the 200 butterfly in 1:48.64. Hard finished first in the 500 free with a time of 4:37.67. Jacobo took the win in the 200 individual medley with a time of 1:55.48.
The Aggies closed out the meet with a win in the 400 free relay with the foursome of freshman Gregory Widmer, senior Ozzie Gardner, Picasso and sophomore Kyle Holland finishing in 3:04.03.