Badgers Finish Day 1 of Texas Invite
November 30, 2006 | Women's Swimming & Diving
The University of Wisconsin men's and women's swimming and diving teams earned an NCAA 'A' time and more than a dozen NCAA consideration times Thursday on the first day of competition of the Texas Invitational at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center.
With their performance, the Badger women sit in fourth with 147 points, while the men also are fourth with 138 points. Arizona leads the meet on both sides.
'We started off in a real solid fashion,' head coach Eric Hansen said. 'Both the men and women competed well; Susan Johnson and Scott Rice really stood out.'
Johnson garnered UW's lone NCAA qualifying time of the day via her backstroke split of 54.05 as the leadoff to the 400-yard medley relay. Rice led the men with two NCAA 'B' cuts.
As for the rest of the team, Wisconsin fared well in its biggest meet of the semester. In the 100-yard butterfly alone the Badger women picked up three NCAA 'B' times, as Johnson captured seventh (53.78), Jenny Gelden was 13th (54.72) and Katie Imhoff-Smith swam to 14th (54.74).
Two more provisional marks were gained in the 500-yard freestyle, an event in which Jen Illescas took seventh (4:50.55), and Gabby Maddalena was 14th (4:52.00).
Other Badger swimmers with NCAA 'B' times were Andrea Wiesner in the 200-yard IM (fifth, 2:00.75), as well as Jackie Vavrek (fifth, 22.92) and Hannah McClurg (17th, 23.32) in the 50-yard freestyle.
Both of the women's relay teams also reeled off NCAA 'B' times'the 200-yard freestyle relay team of McClurg, Vavrek, Christine Zwiegers and Johnson finished fourth (1:32.11), and the 400-yard medley relay team of Johnson, Rosie Morahan, Gelden and McClurg came in fifth (3:41.93).
On the men's side, Rice tallied NCAA provisional marks in the 100-yard butterfly (seventh, 47.90) and in the 200-yard IM (10th, 1:48.97). Meanwhile, the 200-yard freestyle relay team of Kyle Sorensen, Mike Desautels, Phil Davies and Tom Molzahn notched fourth (1:20.89) for their own NCAA 'B' time.
In diving, Kelly Todd was the lone Badger to place in the finals; he took seventh on the 1-meter board with a score of 258.80.
On Friday, the women's 1-meter diving, men's 3-meter diving, 200 medley relay, 400 IM, 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke, 100 backstroke and 800 free relay events will be held.
