Michigan
Eastern Michigan
U-M Cruises to Season-Opening Win at Eastern Michigan
10/29/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming & Diving
Site: Ypsilanti, Mich. (Michael H. Jones Natatorium)
Result: #9 Michigan 158, Eastern Michigan 85
Records: U-M (1-0), EMU (0-1)
Next U-M Meet: Friday, Nov. 5 -- at Wisconsin (Madison, Wis.), 5 p.m. CST
YPSILANTI, Mich. -- The No. 9 University of Michigan men's swimming and diving team claimed a 158-85 win tonight (Friday, Oct. 29) at Eastern Michigan in U-M's first meet of the season and first under the direction of head coach Bob Bowman. The victory marked the 37th straight year the Wolverines have opened the season with a win and improved Michigan's record against Eastern Michigan to a perfect 25-0.
The Wolverines (1-0) claimed victory in 11 of the 13 scheduled events with a number of Wolverines winning multiple events. Senior Christian Vanderkaay (Rochester, Mich./Adams HS) won the 50-yard freestyle and the 200-yard breaststroke, senior Zayd Ma (Ann Arbor, Mich./Clonlara HS) took the 1,000-yard freestyle and the 200-yard butterfly, and senior Chuck Sayao (Mississauga, Ontario/Cawthra Park HS) claimed first in the 200-yard individual medley and the 200-yard backstroke.
Junior Chris DeJong (Holland, Mich./Holland HS), the 2003 Big Ten champion in the 200-yard backstroke, went away from his specialty to win the 100- and 200-yard freestyle events and teamed with freshmen Grant Burtch (Holland, Mich./Holland HS), Dane Grenda (Hockessin, Del./Salesianum HS) and Alex Vanderkaay (Rochester, Mich./Adams HS) to finish first in the 400-yard medley relay.
Michigan got started with its victory in the 400 medley relay with DeJong combining with the freshman trio of Burtch, Grenda and Alex Vanderkaay to post the top time of 3:22.56.
The Wolverines kept things rolling with a 1-2 finish in the 1,000-yard freestyle and a 1-3-4 placing in the 200-yard freestyle. Ma claimed his first victory of the season with a time of 9:26.52 in the 1,000 free and Brendan Neligan (Briarwood, N.Y./Archbishop Molloy HS) took second at 9:28.21. In the 200 free DeJong finished first in 1:40.94, followed by freshman Johnny Austermann (Huntington Woods, Mich./Berkley HS) in third at 1:43.48 and senior Nicholas Douville (Dayton, Ohio/Archbishop Alter HS) in fourth at 1:44.62.
Following Christian Vanderkaay's victory in the 50 freestyle (21.45) and Sayao's win in the 200-yard IM (1:52.62), junior Jake Boehm (Glenview, Ill./Glenbrook South HS) posted U-M's top score in the one-meter springboard diving with a total of 255.75, good for second.
Michigan continued to rack up the points with Ma and Alex Vanderkaay's 1-2 finish in the 200 butterfly, DeJong and Christian Vanderkaay's 1-2 finish in the 100 freestyle and Sayao, Grenda and Douville's 1-2-3 finish in the 200 backstroke.
In the 500-yard freestyle, Neligan claimed his first victory of the season with a time of 4:35.15. Following him were Austermann, matching his third-place performance from earlier in the night, and junior Jorge Carral (Mexico City, Mexico/The Bolles School, Fla.) in fourth.
Donadee and Boehm combined to finish 1-2 in the three-meter diving event with scores of 247.05 and 235.12, respectively. For Donadee, it was his first event title as a Wolverine.
In the final individual event of the night, Christian Vanderkaay won the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:06.55 for his second victory of the evening. Burtch finished second in 2:08.10 and fellow freshman Dane Rook (Metamora, Mich./Cranbrook Kingswood HS) took fifth in 2:11.55.
Michigan will return to the pool on Friday, Nov. 5, at 5 p.m. CST when it opens the Big Ten season at Wisconsin in Madison, Wis. Michigan has won 21 straight Big Ten openers.
Q U O T E S
Michigan Swimming Head Coach Bob Bowman
On the team's performance ... "They certainly met my expectations for this meet. This is more of a yardstick for us to see where we are in training. I thought we swam very well, particulary the freshmen. I think they all swam near their best times, which is a pretty good thing to do early in the season."
On the meet's significance in terms of the season ... "What it gave us is a starting point. Now we can go back and practice on some specific things from this meet. We kind of showed where we are weak and where we are doing things well. We don't turn very well and we don't start very well. We will have to work on that."
On potential trouble spots later in the year ... "Depth is by far our biggest problem and getting enough guys in the top five to score points. We have the top-flight guys to win events, but getting the third, fourth and fifth place guys will be the toughest part."
Players Mentioned
