University of Tennessee Athletics
Aqua Vols Suffer First Loss of the Season
January 18, 2008 | Men's Swimming & Diving
Results??|??Photo Gallery
The sixth-ranked Tennessee men???s swimming and diving team lost its first meet of the season Friday against the No. 7 Indiana Hoosiers at the UT Student Aquatic Center. The Vols kept up with the Hoosiers until the just before the three-meter diving break when Indiana pulled away to a 166-134 victory. The Vols still boast an overall record of 6-1 with a 3-0 conference record.
???Tennessee and Indiana were very evenly matched teams coming into today,??? UT head coach John Trembley said. ???Clearly they raced harder than we did in all the right spots. We didn???t take advantage of some opportunities that we had. However, we did have some good performances; Nolan Morrell, Michael Wolfe, Jordan Walters in his 50 free, Michael Muscari, Chris Davis and Ryan Rincon all in the one meter. We had some bright spots, just not enough.???
Muscari, Rincon and Davis began the day by taking the third-fifth spots on the one-meter boards with scores of 316.95, 284.78 and 260.56, respectively. Indiana???s Landon Marzullo won the event with a 348.23 mark. Wolfe, Barry Murphy, Octavio Alesi and Morrell followed the diving performance with a victory in the 200 medley relay (1:28.73). Geoff Sanders then went on to capture first-place in the 1000 freestyle in 9:20.72 followed by teammate Carl Jones in fourth.
After the distance freestyle, Jonas Persson finished just behind Hoosier Patrick Todd in second-place with a time of 1:38.66. Morrell too grabbed a second-place finish in the 200 freestyle, clocking in at 49.94. Murphy and Brad Craig went second and third in the 100 breaststroke, respectively, as Murphy splashed to a time of 55.64 and Craig to 56.85.
Seniors stepped up the pace starting with the 200 butterfly as senior captain Wolfe won the event by over three seconds, earning an official time of 1:49.61. Immediately following, senior teammate Alesi topped the field in the 50 freestyle with a time of 20.41. Underclassman Michael DeRocco aided the effort with a third-place finish in the event (21.02).
The proceeding 200 backstroke saw Wolfe take a second-place finish (1:45.80) and Morrell a fourth-place spot (1:48.56). Freshman Brad Craig cruised to a 1:59.76 victory in the 200 breaststroke. Sanders then tallied another victory when he paced to another distance race victory in the 500 freestyle.
In the next event, Alesi suffered his first dual-meet loss since his sophomore year. He placed just behind the winning Hoosier???s Ben Hensen in the 100 butterfly at 48.36.
To end the meet, Wolfe and Craig took second- and third- places (1:49.51 and 1:52.48), respectively, followed by a second place-finish in the 400 freestyle relay.
Coach Trembley saw the meet as a gauge of which work still needs to be completed before heading into the remainder of the SEC schedule.
???Of course anytime you lose to an equal opponent, you give credit to those coaches and those athletes,??? Trembley said. ???They wanted to win the meet more than we did today. It???s great to race quality opponents like Indiana. We will meet some of those guys again at NCAAs. But we have more work to do in the SEC with No. 9 Georgia next weekend and then the final home competition and last meet in the Ray Bussard Intercollegiate Pool against No. 5 Florida that following weekend.???
The Vols travel to Athens, Ga., to compete against the Georgia Bulldogs at 1:30 p.m. in the Gabrielsen Natatorium.
