The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
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Men's Swimming and Diving adds two more wins over Florida and Indiana
10.17.2015 | Men's Swimming and Diving
Longhorns finish the weekend unblemished after defeating Florida and Indiana in consecutive days.
AUSTIN, Texas – One day after opening the season with wins over Florida and Indiana in a 50-meter long-course pool, defending NCAA champion Texas took to the traditional 25-yard short-course pool and defeated the Gators and Hoosiers once more Saturday afternoon at UT's Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center.
Texas handed Indiana a 154-108 defeat and knocked off Florida by a 162-100 count. Florida defeated Indiana by a 140-122 count in the remaining contest.
Texas opened the meet with a win in the 200-yard medley relay, where freshman John Shebat, junior Will Licon and sophomores Joseph Schooling and Brett Ringgold finished in 1 minute, 28.22 seconds.
Freshman Townley Haas, one of the nation's top incoming freestyle swimmers, led from start-to-finish in the 1,000 freestyle and won by over three seconds in 9:04.17. He returned moments later to land Texas' top finish in the 200 freestyle, where he took second in 1:50.35.
Texas racked up a bundle of points with its one-two-three finish in the 200 butterfly. The reigning NCAA champion Schooling won the event at 1:45.78 while junior Will Glass took second at 1:48.03. Senior John Martens added a third-place mark of 1:48.50.
Freshman Ryan Harty posted another impressive swim and came away with a victory in the 200 backstroke at 1:43.87. His classmate, Shebat, added a fourth-place mark of 1:48.11.
Licon, the reigning NCAA champion in the 200 breaststroke, extended the Horns' lead over Florida and put Texas ahead of Indiana for good with his win in the 200 breast at 1:58.84. Junior Hayden Henry picked up key points for Texas with his third-place mark of 2:03.55.
The Longhorns stretched their leads over both Florida and Indiana when 2015 NCAA champion Clark Smith put away the rest of the field and cruised to victory in the 500 freestyle at 4:21.95. With one reigning champion racing after another, the Longhorns increased their cushion and put away the team victories. This time it was Schooling, the reigning NCAA champion in the 100 butterfly, who took his turn to win another of his signature events. The Olympian from Singapore edged teammate Jack Conger in 46.97 while Conger settled for second at 47.55.
Harty put forth another outstanding swim and rallied to win the 400 IM. Harty trailed Florida's Mark Szaranek at 350 yards but out-split Szaranek in the final 50 yards to win in 3:50.26. The Texas quartet of Haas, Conger, Ringgold and Schooling finished off the win with a 400 freestyle relay victory in 2:55.89. All-America junior Mark Anderson landed Texas' top diving finish of the day with his third-place total of 329.78 points on platform.
POST-MEET COMMENTS
Texas head coach Eddie Reese
On the second day of the meet versus the first day: The opposing teams are always at a disadvantage (due to travel) so once they have been here for a full day, they got a lot better today. We didn't have to travel so we started out a little bit better today and kind of stayed that way.
On the heavy training at this time of year: The middle of October is a really tough time to have a meet. We are in heavy training. In fact we call October "Rocktober" because I hit them hard in practices. We didn't let up this week. We did a great job responding to that. It may not have been a team battle, but there are a lot of individual battles out there amongst our own team and people from the other team. It's all about racing.
On improvements over the next month: Turns and finishes. We've got to work the simple things; that will kill you in any sport. Just do the little things right and everything else follows.
Junior Will Licon
On the progress through the season-opening meets: I think we did very well. I mean we are all pretty beat up right now, like most teams around the country, but considering that I feel like we had a couple of really good swims. There are a couple of people who are little more tired than others, but overall I think it was a great meet, especially the long course on the first day. That was a good pointer to see where we truly are fitness-wise.
On why Texas didn't perform as well in short course on Saturday compared to long course on Friday: It's kind of hard to tell when you're broken down a little too much. This pool is very reliant on speed, and it's kind of hard to get that going right now early in the season. We all raced hard and put everything we had into it, so overall I still think it's pretty good.
On having head-to-head battles with Indiana's Tanner Kurz: You have to swim almost a perfect race. You just can't go in and hope it goes easy; you have to go in with everything you've got and attack it from the beginning and finish hard.
On the improvements Texas needs to make in the next month: Just keep training, just keep at what we are doing. This season winds down a little bit, not for a while, but start putting a little more speed emphasis on. I'd say, if anything, just learning how to hold some of our walls towards the middle and back half of races. But other than that, just have to get back to work.
Players Mentioned
