400-yard Freestyle Relay Vaults NU Into 11th on Last Day of NCAA Championships

Indianapolis, Ind. - With a seventh-place finish in the final event of the meet, the 400-yard freestyle relay, the Nebraska men's swimming and diving team climbed into 11th place at the 76th annual NCAA Championships on Saturday.

Nebraska entered the 400-yard freestyle relay ranked 13th in the team race. NU's squad of Anthony Rogis, Adam Pine, Josh Mathias and Javier Botello touched the wall in a time of 2:55.62 (second all-time at NU) to place seventh, bringing their three-day-point total to 139 and vaulting them ahead of Florida State (136.5) and Miami (128), who finished 12th and 13th, respectively.

"It came down to the last relay and we swam our fastest time of the year. Our guys swam great," Nebraska Head Coach Cal Bentz said.

The 11th-place finish marks the third highest in NU history and the best of the 1990's. Nebraska finished 10th at both the 1988 and 1989 meet, while a 12th-place showing in 1997 marked the previous best of the past decade. The Huskers narrowly missed finishing in the top ten, as Big 12 rival Texas A&M bested NU by nine points to finish 10th. Last season, NU finished 18th.

"We are very excited to be at the level of an 11th-place program. We moved up seven spots from last year and we have six NCAA Qualifiers returning," Bentz said. "I don't think there was any question we wanted to be in the top ten. We were knocking on the door as loud as you could without getting in."

Auburn, who entered the meet ranked third nationally, cruised to the meet title with a total of 467.5 points. Defending champion and top-ranked Stanford finished second with 414.5, while Big 12 Champion and second-ranked Texas finished third (356.5).

Nebraska's point total was also aided by All-America performances from Valery Kalmikovs and Pine.

A 1996 Olympian, Kalmikovs (Riga, Latvia) earned All-America honors by placing sixth in the 200-yard breaststroke, posting a time of 1:58.21. Auburn's Dave Denniston won the event with a time of 1:55.51. In the preliminaries, Kalmikovs tied Dmitri Malinovski of BYU for eighth place with a time of 1:58.92. In a swim off contested to advance the winner into the championship finals, Kalmikovs touched the wall first in a NU and Big 12 record time of 1:58.15.

Coming off a second-place finish in the 100-yard butterfly on Friday, Pine (Ballina, Australia), finished seventh in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 43.59, garnering All-America honors. Bart Kizierowski of California won the race in a time of 42.70.

Results: Saturday Finals (Top Eight; Nebraska Finishers)
1,650-yard freestyle: 1. Ryk Neethling, Arizona, 14:35.57; 2. Chris Thompson, Michigan, 14:38.96; 3. Tim Siciliano, Michigan, 14:47.80; 4. Nat Lewis, Arizona, 14:55.34; 5. Tim Martin, Harvard, 14:58.38; 6. Jon Younghouse, Texas, 15:02.20; 7. Carl Larsen, UC Santa Barbara, 15:03.62; 8. Mark Leonard, Eastern Michigan, 15:03.66.

200-yard backstroke: 1. Tate Blahnik, Stanford, 1:41.42; 2. Matthew Cole, Florida, 1:42.21; 3. Marc Lindsay, Georgia, 1:42.62; 4. Brian Walters, Northwestern, 1:42.80; 5. Yoav Gath, Georgia, 1:42.95; 6. Leonardo Costa, California, 1:43.57; 7. Gordon Kozulj, California, 1:43.85; 8. Justin Ewers, Stanford, 1:44.27.

100-yard freestyle: 1. Bart Kizierowski, California, 42.70; 2. Roland Schoeman, Arizona, 42.88; 3. Brock Newman, Auburn, 42.92; 4. Bela Szabados, Southern California, 43.23; 5. Brendon Dedekind, Florida State, 43.29; 6. Nick Folker, Hawaii, 43.51; 7. Adam Pine, Nebraska, 43.59; 8. Dod Wales, Stanford, 43.61; 21. Anthnoy Rogis, Nebraska, 44.23; 40. Josh Mathias, Nebraska, 44.93.

200-yard breaststroke: 1. Dave Denniston, Auburn, 1:55.51; 2. Edward Moses, Virginia, 1:57.06; 3. Scott Werner, Michigan, 1:57.52; 4. Jeff Hopwood, Michigan, 1:58.02; 5. Nuk Sirisanont, California, 1:58.19; 6. Valery Kalmikovs, Nebraska, 1:58.21 (1:58.15 in swim off, Big 12 record); 7. Vilmos Kovacs, Purdue, 1:59.06; Andrew Chan, California, 1:59.07.

200-yard butterfly: 1. Shamek Pietucha, Virginia, 1:43.50; 2. Tom Malchow, Michigan, 1:43.58; 3. Stephen Parry, Florida State, 1:44.36; 4. Steven Brown, Stanford, 1:44.63; 5. Andrew Livingston, UNLV, 1:45.00; 6. Adam Messner, Stanford, 1:45.03; 7. Doak Finch, Virginia, 1:45.10; 8. Jef Somensatto, Auburn, 1:46.12.

Platform diving: 1. Rio Ramirez, Miami, 901.60; 2. Tory Dumais, Texas, 841.00; 3. Justin Dumais, Southern California, 837.95; 4. Hank Richardson, Florida, 817.20; 5. Gabi Chereches, Tennessee, 796.70; 6. Imre Lengyel, Miami, 795.60; 7. Mike Collier, Indiana, 774.65; 8. Brent Roberts, Alabama, 772.20; 17. Erik Cook, Nebraska, 403.80.

400-yard freestyle relay: 1. Auburn (Newman, Hawke, Ciarla, Barnier), 2:50.90 (NCAA record, U.S. Open record); 2. Stanford (Ewers, Counts, Robinson, Wales), 2:53.41; 3. Arizona (Schoeman, Stickels, Schryver, Gaskins), 2:53.87; 4. California (Macedo, Lindstrom, Kizierowski, Moore), 2:54.52; 5. Texas A&M (Morrow, Kappler, Colligan, Kehlenbach), 2:54.86; 6. Southern California (Woodward, Demers, Williams, Szabados), 2:55.11; 7. Nebraska (Rogis, Pine, Mathias, Botello), 2:55.62 (second all-time at NU); 8. Texas (Jones, Dusing, Crawford, Rauch), 2:55.72.

Meet Awards:
NCAA Swimmer of the Year: Ryk Neethling, Arizona
NCAA Coach of the Year: David Marsh, Auburn
NCAA Diver of the Year: Rio Ramirez, Miami
NCAA Diving Coach of the Year: Randy Abelman, Miami

Final Team Standings (Top 15)
1. Auburn 467.5
2. Stanford 414.5
3. Texas 356.5
4. California 300.5
5. Arizona 296
6. Southern California 286.5
7. Tennessee 171
8. Michigan 169
9. Georgia 149.5
10. Texas A&M 148
11. Nebraska 139
12. Florida State 136.5
13. Miami 128
14. Virginia 114
15. Minnesota 112