Jan. 16, 2009
COLLEGE STATION - The eighth-ranked Texas A&M women's swimming & diving team earned a 173-109 win over the University of Houston on Friday evening at the Student Rec Center Natatorium.
The Aggies (7-0) won all 14 races in the pool but the talk of the meet came in a pair of second-place finishes in the diving well.
Sophomore transfer Jaele Patrick (Lilydale, Victoria, Australia) went toe-to-toe with Olympic silver medalist and 2007 NCAA runner-up Anastasia Pozdniakova of Houston, by way of Russia, in likely the greatest dual meet diving contest in the history of the A&M natatorium.
Both divers set records in their first event, the three-meter springboard. Pozdniakova destroyed the natatorium record of 352.80, set by Allison Brennan of South Carolina in 2005, winning with a score of 375.08. Patrick, competing as an Aggie for the very first time, finished second, setting an A&M school record of 341.40. The former record of 339.45 was held by three-time All-American and former Big 12 Diver of the Year Alida DiPlacido in 2005.
On the one-meter, Pozdniakova and Patrick battled it out with the Olympic medalist scraping out a win by less than nine points. Patrick also came oh-so-close to taking down the nine-year-old A&M team record of 311.32 set by another former Big 12 Diver of the Year, Danielle Guarneri. Patrick finished with a score of 309.75.
"It was awesome to finally get on the boards and experience what a college meet was like," Patrick said. "After having been here only three weeks, it ended up going really well for me. I wasn't expecting to try and break any records. I didn't really know much about it until everybody told me afterwards. It was pretty exciting to do that in my first meet."
Olympian Triin Aljand (Tallinn, Estonia) and junior co-captain Melissa Hain (Kingwood) each won a pair of events against the Cougars. Aljand won the 100-yard freestyle, an event she leads the nation in, in 50.63 while capturing first in the 100-yard breaststroke, an event she rarely contests, in 1:05.98. Hain won two events she had yet to compete in all season, winning the 200 fly in 2:04.23 and the 200 breast in 2:21.86.
U.S. Olympic medalist and A&M senior Christine Marshall (Newport News, Va.) won the 100-yard butterfly in 55.82 while senior All-American Marissa Jasek (San Antonio) won the 50 free in 23.88.
Olympian Alia Atkinson (Pembroke Pines, Fla.) captured top honors in the 200 individual medley in 2:03.39 while her fellow juniors, Emily Neal and Sarah Woods, won the 1,000 free (10:12.03) and the 100 back (57.77), respectively.
Sophomores Casey Hurrell-Zitelman (San Antonio) and Hannah Kinder (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) each won an event against Houston. Hurrell-Zitelman came close to her season best in the 500 free, winning in 5:00.03, while Kinder captured the 200 free in 1:52.21.
Megan Latone (Austin) was the lone Aggie freshman to grab the top spot in an individual race, hitting the wall first in the 200 back in 2:03.27.
The Aggies sandwiched their 12 individual wins with victories in both relays. The group of Triin Aljand, and Caroline Maxvill swam to the 200-yard freestyle relay win in 1:36.63.
The Aggies will put their undefeated dual meet record on the line at home next Friday at 6 p.m. when the face No. 3 Texas in the State Farm Lone Star Showdown. The following day both the A&M men's and women's teams will take on Louisiana State at noon.