Oct. 23, 2009
The Texas A&M men's swimming and diving team stands in second place after the first day of the Southwest Collegiate Plunge on Friday at the Mansfield ISD Natatorium. The competition resumes on Saturday at 11 a.m.
The Aggies scored 380 points on Friday and trail first-day leader Texas, who posted 459 points. Misssouri stands in third place with 362 points, while host SMU scored 327 points.
"It was a good first day for us," Aggie head coach Jay Holmes said. "We swam really well for this time of the season. All four of the teams are training really hard at this point of the season. I think our upperclassmen have done a great job of adapting to the workload and finding a way to swim fast. You could tell that right out of the block."
The Aggies posted runner-up finishes in five of the eight events on Friday. The 400-yard medley relay of senior Nikita Denisyako, sophomore Amini Fonua, junior Boris Loncaric and junior Balazs Makany hit the wall in 3:21.28 to finish just behind Texas.
Freshman Omar Enriquez went toe to toe with Texas' Jackson Wilcox in the 500 freestyle and finished just 1.39 seconds behind for the runner-up finish.
Loncaric, an All-American in the butterfly last season, placed second in the 100 fly to Texas Olympian Ricky Berens with a time of 50.21.
Denisyako took second in the 200 backstroke with a time of 1:48.48, and Snowden added a runner-up finish in the 100 breast with a time of 57.03.