University of Minnesota Athletics
Men's Swimming Finishes Seventh at NCAA Championships
3/29/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming & Diving
The Gophers' performance included 12 different swimmers earning All-American honors a total of 31 times. Terry Silkaitis led the Gophers with six All-America honors. Minnesota improved its national finish from last year when the Gophers finished eighth overall with 216 points. Minnesota had the most points by any other Big Ten school. The next closest was Michigan with 173.5 points and finished in ninth place.
"We're very happy with our performance at the national championships," head coach Dennis Dale said. "Our goal was to finish better then we did last year and we moved up a spot this year. It's now our fourth straight year to finish in the top 10 and we're every excited about that."
The Gophers had their best event in the 200-yard breaststroke when Mike Brown and Jeff Hackler finished in the top eight. Brown had the third-fastest time when he clocked a season and career best time of 1:55.63. Brown shaved down his prelim time of 1:56.01, but Texas' Brenden Hansen broke his own NCAA, American and US Open Record in 1:52.62. It is the first All-America honor for Brown, a freshman from Perth, Ontario.
Junior Justin Mortimer gained All-American honorable mention in the 1650 free, placing 14th overall. Mortimer swam to a 15:07.70, while Travis Beckerle added a 24th-place finish for the Golden Gophers.
Todd Smolinski added a 12th-place finish in the 200-yard backstroke when he finished in 1:44.65. It was his fastest time of the season and narrowly broke his career best, which is 1:44.38. Diego Urreta finished 28th overall with a time of 1:47.12. Texas' Aaron Piersol set the a new NCAA, American and US Open record in the 200 back in 1:40.01.
Terry Silkaitis finished the 100-yard freestyle in 43.55, good enough for 10th overall. Silkaitis finished the preliminaries in 15th overall clocking a 43.72. Allen Ong finished 28th in the event in 44.14, a season best.
Matt Taylor finished 25th overall in the 200-yard butterfly in 1:47.39.
The foursome of Silkaitis, Ong, Taylor and Smolinski added a tied, seventh-place finish in the 400 free relay against Florida. The Gophers had a season-best time of 2:54.94, but California broke the NCAA and US Open record in 2:48.99.
In the entire NCAA Championships this year, seven NCAA records were broken, four American records were broken and five US Open records were broken.
Hackler, Ong, Smolinski and Taylor finished their Gopher careers tonight in Austin, Texas. Hackler ended his four-year run as a 15-time All-American, Ong a nine-time All-American, Smolinski a 16-time All-American and Taylor a nine-time All-American.
1) AUBURN 609.5 2) TEXAS 413 3) STANFORD 374 4) CALIFORNIA 329 5) SOUTHERN CAL. 268 6) FLORIDA 232 7) MINNESOTA 228 8) ARIZONA 205 9) MICHIGAN 173.5 10) VIRGINIA 125
