Texas A&M
LSU
Shaw shines in Senior Day win over LSU
Jan 24, 2015 | Men's Swimming and Diving
Bolstered by Shaw's career-best performance, the Aggies improved to 6-3 in dual meets with a 166-121 victory over the Tigers. The Aggies, who earned a No. 16 national ranking by the College Swim Coaches Association of America earlier this week, won 15 of 16 possible events in the landslide victory.
"A lot of hard work and dedication came to fruition today for us," Aggie head coach Jay Holmes said. "It was great to see all their hard work starting to pay off. There's still a lot of work to be done and lots of things we can improve before we're ready for the SEC Championships in a few weeks, but I was proud of the way we competed."
Two of the Aggies' three seniors earned victories on Senior Day with Shaw and Hayden Duplechain combining to win four races. A&M's third senior, diver Ford McLiney, has been injured all season and did not compete against the Tigers. Shaw won the 100 free (43.64), the 200 free (1:36.10) and the 100 butterfly (47.56), and also swam the third leg on the winning 200 free relay. Duplechain looked strong on his way to an easy victory in the 400 IM in a time of 3:53.35.
Perhaps the biggest highlight of the day for the Aggies came from a freshman when Mauro Castillo shocked the crowd with a school record swim in the 200 breaststroke, marking the first time an Aggie has broken a school record in a regular season meet since 2011. Castillo stroked to victory in a time of 1:55.65, which broke the old record of 1:56.55 set by Bryan Snowden in 2011 by nearly a second. Earlier in the meet, Castillo had lopped off nearly three seconds on his season best while winning the 100 breaststroke in 53.78 (No. 5 in school history).
"I'm very proud of what Mauro was able to accomplish today," Holmes said. "He came here as a very good swimmer but he's done absolutely everything that Coach (Ryan) Mallam has asked him to do since he arrived on campus and his improvement was shown today – just a great, great swim."
Other Aggies grabbing victories against the Tigers were junior Mitch Glander in the 1,000 free (9:18.64), freshman Brock Bonetti in the 100 back (48.69), junior Cory Bolleter in 50 free (20.04), freshman Tyler Henschel in the 1m dive (352.80) and 3m dive (391.35), junior Alexandros Theocharidis in the 200 back (1:45.61) and freshman Gonzalo Carrazo in the 500 free (4:28.32).
The Aggies swept both relays with the 400 medley relay of Bonetti, Castillo, freshman Justin Morey and Bolleter stopping the clock in 3:13.91 and the 200 free relay of Bolleter, sophomore Jacob Gonzales, Shaw and Morey touching in 1:19.84.
Players Mentioned
