Men's Swimming & Diving wins 12th NCAA Championship

Saturday, March 26

Atlanta, Ga.

10 a.m./6 p.m. ET

University of Texas

NCAA Championships

Men's Swimming & Diving wins 12th NCAA Championship

03.26.2016 | Men's Swimming and Diving

Will Licon and Joseph Schooling set individual NCAA records as the Longhorns power to their 12th NCAA team title.

Results | Photo Gallery | Highlights & Celebration Video | Video: Eddie Reese & Will Licon interview (via Swimming World)

ATLANTA – Texas' Will Licon and Joseph Schooling unleashed NCAA and U.S. Open record swims, and Jack Conger lowered his own American record as the Longhorns' punctuated their wire-to-wire run to a 12^th NCAA team title Saturday evening at the 2016 NCAA Championships.

The Longhorns tie Michigan for No. 1 all-time with 12 NCAA titles, and 38^th-year UT head coach Eddie Reese passes former Ohio State coach Mike Peppe as the most decorated coach in the sport's history with 12 NCAA team titles.

Texas won the NCAA Championships with 541.5 points while California took second with 351 points. Florida took third place with 334 points while N.C. State placed fourth at 314. Georgia rounded out the top-five with 239.5 points.

Schooling tied with California's Ryan Murphy and Florida's Caeleb Dressel for the CSCAA Swimmer of the Meet honor. Reese also collected his second straight CSCAA National Coach of the Meet Award

Licon rewrote the NCAA, American, U.S. Open and NCAA Championship records in the 200 breaststroke and claimed his second consecutive national title in the event at 1:48.12, well under the previous mark of 1:48.66 by Arizona's Kevin Cordes at the 2014 NCAA Championships. Licon faced off against Cal's Josh Prenot for the third time in as many days after splitting the first two races with the Golden Bear. The El Paso native led from wire-to-wire on his way to victory.

Schooling joined Conger for arguably the most dynamic head-to-head 200 butterfly race ever contested at the NCAA Championships, as both Longhorns became the first swimmers ever to break the 1:39 mark at 200 yards. Conger led for the first 150 yards before Schooling inched his way even with Conger. Schooling out-touched Conger at the wall in 1:37.97, less than a tenth of Conger's 1:38.06, which lowered his American record by over a second.

Schooling, a 2012 London Olympian from Singapore, leaves Atlanta with NCAA and U.S. Open records in the 100 and 200 butterfly events.

Texas began its final march to its 12^th NCAA team title with the 1,650 freestyle, where top seed Clark Smith and two-time NCAA individual champion Townley Haas competed in the evening finals heat. Haas posted a lifetime best of 14 minutes, 34.36 seconds for fourth place overall, and Smith added five points for the Horns with his 12^th-place overall finish in 14:50.00.

Freshman Ryan Harty landed his first individual berth in a championship final, as he placed seventh in the 200 backstroke at 1:40.11. Harty clocked a lifetime best of 1:39.17 in the preliminary round and fell one one-hundredth of a second off of Aaron Peirsol's 13-year-old school mark of 1:39.16.

Freshman John Shebat added consecutive lifetime bests in the event. Shebat clocked 1:40.30 in prelims to advance to the consolation final and lowered his personal best to 1:40.10 for third place in the consolation final.

Sophomore Brett Ringgold notched a personal best in the 100 freestyle championship final before lowering it later with his 400 freestyle relay leadoff. Ringgold took fifth in the 100 free final in 41.80, and senior John Murray tied for seventh at 42.65. Senior Matt Ellis took third in the consolation final at 42.54.

Junior diver Mark Anderson scored on all three boards at the NCAA Championships for a second consecutive year. The Lake Forest, California, native landed a fourth-place finish on platform with 421.55 points.

Texas capped the meet by taking a close second in the 400 freestyle relay at 2:46.85, a fraction of a second under the seven-year-old school record from the 2009 Big 12 Championships.

NCAA Championships Post-Meet Notes

Texas ties Michigan for No. 1 all-time with 12 NCAA men's swimming and diving team titles (1981, '88, '89, 1990, '91, '96, 2000, '01, '02, 2010, '15, '16). He is the only coach in the sport's history to win NCAA team titles in four separate decades.
Texas head coach Eddie Reese passes former Ohio State coach Mike Peppe for No. 1 all-time with 12 NCAA men's swimming and diving team titles
Texas has posted 23 NCAA top-two finishes and 30 top-three finishes at the NCAA Championships in Reese's 38 seasons with the Longhorns.
Texas' nine NCAA individual and relay titles for the meet are the most for the Longhorns at an NCAA Championship since 2001, when UT won an NCAA-record 11 events
Texas opened the NCAA Championships by winning the first four events for the first time in school history. Its victories in the first three events marked the first time Texas had completed that feat, as well.
Texas opened the meet by winning its NCAA-leading 13^th national title in the 800-yard freestyle relay, as Jack Conger, Clark Smith, Townley Haas and Joseph Schooling set NCAA, U.S. Open, NCAA Championship meet, school and Big 12 records in 6:08.03
The Longhorns won their second straight national title in the 200 freestyle relay and sixth in school history, as Brett Ringgold, Joseph Schooling, Jack Conger and John Murray took the win in 1:14.88, good for school, Big 12 and pool records.
Townley Haas delivered UT's second consecutive NCAA title in the 500 freestyle in 4:09.00. Texas had yet to win an NCAA title in the 500 freestyle prior to the 2014-15 season, but the Horns now have two to their credit.
Will Licon became UT's third NCAA champion in the 200 IM and its first since Austin Surhoff in 2010. Licon is the only Longhorn ever to win NCAA titles in both the 200 and 400 individual medleys.
Texas capped the second night of the NCAA Championships by lowering its own NCAA, U.S. Open and NCAA Championship meet records in the 400 medley relay, where UT won its second straight national title and 13^th overall (No. 1 all-time). John Shebat, Will Licon, Joseph Schooling and Jack Conger won the relay in 3:00.68
Townley Haas made a clean sweep of the record book in the 200 freestyle, as he set NCAA, American, U.S. Open, NCAA Championship meet, school, Big 12 and pool records at 1:30.46. He became the first swimmer ever to clear the 1:31 mark in the event.
Joseph Schooling set NCAA, U.S. Open, NCAA Championship meet, school, Big 12 and pool records in the 100 butterfly in 44.01. It broke the seven-year-old NCAA, U.S. Open and NCAA Championship meet record of 44.18 held by Stanford's Austin Staab.
Will Licon set NCAA, American, U.S. Open, NCAA Championship meet, school, Big 12 and pool records in the 200-yard breaststroke at 1:48.12. Licon finished the meet with NCAA individual titles in the 200 IM and 200 breaststroke to go with a runner-up finish in the 400 IM.
Joseph Schooling set NCAA, U.S. Open, NCAA Championship meet, school, Big 12 and pool records on his way to victory in the 200-yard butterfly at 1:37.97. Schooling has won all four butterfly races he has contested in his two NCAA Championships appearances.
Jack Conger lowered his American record in the 200-yard butterfly with his runner-up finish in the event at 1:38.06.