March 26, 2010
The Texas A&M men's swimming and diving team is tied for 11th after the first day of the 2010 NCAA Championships on Friday at Ohio State's McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion.
           The Aggies scored 33 points on the first day of competition after two relays earned evening swims and diver Grant Nel reached the Championship final on the one-meter springboard. The Aggies are tied with Georgia and Purdue, and are looking up at first-day leader Texas (145 points), California (139), Florida (118), Auburn (114.5), Stanford (106), Arizona (87), Michigan (77), Virginia (53), Ohio State (46.5) and Kentucky (34).
       "The way that we swam in the prelims was our saving grace today," Aggie head swimming coach Jay Holmes said. "Technically, you don't score any points in the prelims, but the way we swam in the morning allowed us to keep all our goals ahead of us. Today was disappointing because I believe we could have done so much more, but we're still in position to reach our goal of finishing in the top 10."
           A&M scored 22 points with an eight-place finish in the 400-yard medley relay. The relay foursome of senior Nikita Denisyako, junior Tyler Welch and freshman John Wagner finished in 3:15.03. The foursome of Denisyako, junior Nathan Lavery, junior Boris Loncaric and junior Balazs Makany earned a spot in the Championship final with a season-best time of 3:08.65 in the morning.
       "The 400 medley relay did a great job in the morning," Holmes said. "Nobody was expecting us to be in that `A' final. We got great swims from all four guys."
           The Aggies received 11 points from Nel, who earned his second All-America citation with an eighth-place finish on the one-meter. Nel posted after a six-dive total of 373.30 points in the final after qualifying with a season-best score of 378.40.
         "That was a great performance by Grant just to get into the final," Holmes said. "His first dive of the prelims put him in a hole and he was fighting the whole time. He did a tremendous job against a very, very strong field of divers."
           The Aggies had some bad fortune when the 200-yard freestyle relay was disqualified from the consolation final because of an early take-off. In the morning session, the Aggie foursome of Makany, senior Casey Strange, freshman Jason Bergstrom qualified 13th in 1:18.64, which was just off their season-best.
           In other preliminary action, Strange finished in a tie for 21st with a season-best time of 19.74 in the 50-yard freestyle.
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