AUSTIN – The Texas A&M men's swimming and diving team will open its 2014-15 season with a road dual meet against the Texas Longhorns at 6 p.m. on Friday at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center.
Longtime rivals in the Southwest Conference and the Big 12 Conference, the Aggies and Longhorns have not contested a dual meet since Texas A&M moved to the Southeastern Conference in 2012.
“We have a long history with Texas and it's a tremendous rivalry,” Aggie head coach Jay Holmes said. “It's great opportunity to see where we are in our training and what we need to work on. We'll know a lot more about this year's team after swimming against the Longhorns.”
The Aggies go into 2014-15 with high expectations with 16 lettermen returning from last year's squad. Texas A&M took a solid contingent of swimmers to the NCAA Championships last season, but scored only three points as the Aggies finished outside the top 25 for the first time since 1997.
“The way we finished our season last year didn't set well with the team or the coaches,” Holmes said. “We've had to live with that bad taste in our mouths for a year now and it will be nice to get back in the pool so we can do something about it. I like what I'm seeing from this team and I'm anxious to see them race.”
Ten swimmers returning from last season achieved at least an NCAA “B” qualifying standard: seniors Hayden Duplechain and Luke Shaw, juniors Cory Bolleter, Mateo Muzek, Hunter Funk, Jacob Wallace, Alexandros Theocharidis and Antoine Marc, and sophomores Jacob Gonzales and Turker Ayar.
The team will be boosted by a large freshman class with 11 true freshman and two 2014 redshirts. Redshirting last season were Hunter Artmann (Austin, Texas) and Tyler Henschel (Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada), while the incoming freshman class includes Miha Bernat (Ljublijana, Slovenia), Brock Bonetti (Bakersfield, Calif.), Gonzalo Carazo (Madrid, Spain), Mauro Castillo (Zacatecas, Mexico), Kyle Hendricks (Houston, Texas), Cameron Kerr (League City, Texas), Clay McAnany (San Antonio, Texas), Justin Morey (Houston, Texas), Duncan Mulleady (Flower Mound, Texas), Jonathan Tybur (The Woodlands, Texas) and Kyle Whieldon (Plano, Texas).