March 27, 2010
Texas A&M sophomore diver Grant Nel's third place finish in the three-meter springboard highlighted the Aggies' second day at the 2010 NCAA Men's Swimming and Diving Championships on Saturday at Ohio State's McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion.
The Aggies stand in 12th place in the team standings with 86 points, and are just six points out of the top 10. Leading the team standings are California (348.5), Texas (330), Arizona (269), Florida (264), Stanford (221), Auburn (215.5), Michigan (160), Virginia (100), Ohio State (96.5), Georgia (92), USC (86.5) and Texas A&M.
"We're proud of every one of those points because they are very hard to come by," Aggie head swimming coach Jay Holmes said. "We were surely hoping for more points, but none of them came easy. I was pleased with the way we fought and competed."
Nel, from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, flirted with Eric Sehn's school record of 451.35 but fell just shy with a career-best 450.50. Nel nailed a score of 81.60 on his final dive and had the lead through 46 dives, but Purdue's David Boudia (494.90) and Duke's Nick McCrory (459.15) passed Nel on the competition's final two dives. It was the second All-America award of the meet and third of his career for Nel, as he contributed 16 points.
"Grant did a great job of competing against a really strong field," Aggie diving coach Jay Lerew said. "His list (of dives) is huge, and he didn't miss any of the them. He stayed focused on what he needed to do and took care of business."
The Aggies got off to a fast start in the first race of the night with a seventh-place finish in the Championship final of the 200-yard medley relay. The foursome of senior Jason Bergstrom, sophomore Casey Strange hit the wall in 1:25.78 to contribute 24 points to the Aggies' total.
Loncaric nearly pulled off a victory in the consolation final of the 100-yard butterfly, but got edged out by Cincinnati's Josh Schneider by .02 of a second. Loncaric earned his second All-America citation in the 100 fly with a season-best time of 46.23 to finish second (10th overall) and contribute seven points.
"Boris' 100 fly prelim this morning wasn't what we needed it to be, but he had a really good night session," Holmes said. "He had three very important swims, and did a great job for us."
In the final event of the night, the Aggies scored six points with a 14th place finish in the 800-yard freestyle relay. The foursome of junior Balazs Makany, freshman Omar Enriquez, freshman John Wagner and Loncaric turned in a time of 6:29.65.