Feb. 24, 2009
COLUMBIA, Mo. --- The Texas A&M men's swimming and diving team will compete in the 2009 Big 12 Championships Wednesday through Saturday at the Mizzou Aquatic Center on the University of Missouri campus.
The Aggie men will take a scoring team of 18 swimmers and divers to the Championships. The Aggies return four All-Americans from last year's squad that finished 13th at the 2008 NCAA Championships. A&M will also benefit from the return of nine-time Big 12 diving champion Eric Sehn, who returned to action this year after sitting out the 2007-08 season while concentrating on earning a spot in the Olympics.
The winningest student-athlete in school history in terms of individual conference championships, Sehn swept all three dives at the Big 12 Championships in 2005, 2006 and 2007. This season, the senior from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada earned four conference diver of the week honors, which raised his career total to a Big 12 record 12 awards. Sehn posted eight first-place finishes in 10 chances in dual meets this season.
"Eric is a seasoned competitor and he knows how to get it done," Aggie diving coach Kevin Wright said. "He's looked very good in training and he was sharp at the Canadian Winter Nationals two weeks ago. I'm sure he'll do the best he can and when the smoke clears, we'll see how he did. Texas has some really strong divers, so it will be the greatest challenge Eric's ever faced at the Big 12 Championships."
The Aggies' returning All-Americans include senior Brad Raiford, and juniors Jason Bergstrom, Nikita Denisyako and Casey Strange. Other seniors competing in their final Big 12 meet are Shawn Clarke, Kyle Holland, Ryan Loney and John VanNatta.
"The Big 12 Championships, along with the NCAAs, are what this team has been focused on all year," A&M head swimming coach Jay Holmes said. "The team has bought into what we're trying to do here, and they've put in the work. Now it's time to step up on the blocks and race. Everybody forgets November if you have a good February. We don't know how fast we are going to swim, we just know we're going to swim fast."
The Aggies received a boost when Denisyako was ruled eligible for the remainder of the season by the NCAA after an appeal last week. Denisyako had missed all of 2009 and hasn't swam competitively since the 2008 Art Adamson Invitational. From Moscow, Russia, Denisyako set school records in the 200 backstroke and 200 IM and swam the backstroke leg on A&M's school record-setting medley relays last season.
"We are thrilled that the NCAA saw fit to grant our appeal and reinstate Nikita," Holmes said. "Nikita had done everything that was asked of him, and he deserved the chance to compete. We are a different and better team with him."