Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Michigan Trounces Eastern Michigan in Season Opener
10/21/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming & Diving
Site: Ann Arbor, Mich. (Canham Natatorium)
Result: Michigan 155, Eastern Michigan 58
Records: U-M (1-0), EMU (0-1)
Next U-M Meet: Saturday, Nov. 5 -- vs. Georgia (Canham Natatorium), noon
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The University of Michigan men's swimming and diving team opened its 2005-06 season with a 155-58 victory over Eastern Michigan tonight (Friday, Oct. 21) at Canham Natatorium. The win marked the 38th straight year the Wolverines have opened the season with a win and improved Michigan's record against Eastern Michigan to a perfect 26-0. The Wolverines earned the top time or score in all 15 events, including the top three spots in the 200-, 500- and 1,000-yard freestyle races, the 200-yard individual medley, backstroke and breaststroke as well as the 400-yard freestyle relay.
Freshman Kyle Schroeder (Milan, Mich./Milan) led the way for the divers on the one-meter springboard with an NCAA zone diving qualifying mark of 320.90 in his first collegiate event.
Michigan opened the meet with a 1-2 finish in the 400-yard medley relay as the team of freshman Bryan Vessels (Dexter, Mich./Dexter HS), sophomore Grant Burtch (Holland, Mich./Holland HS), senior NCAA champion Davis Tarwater (Knoxville, Tenn./Webb School) and freshman Brad Dotson (Jenison, Mich./Jenison) led the way, touching the wall in 3:25.91. Senior All-American Chris DeJong (Holland, Mich./Holland HS) and senior Andrew Albright (Carmel, Ind./Carmel HS) along with freshmen Curtis Dauw (St. Charles, Ill./St. Charles East HS) and Jamie Martone (Troy, Mich./Troy) followed close behind in 3:27.91.
Freshman Matt Patton (Matthews, N.C./Butler HS) left a big impression to begin the season with victories in the 1,000-yard freestyle and 200-yard butterfly. The freshman posted a time of 9:16.54 in the 1,000 free, with sophomore Johnny Austermann (Huntington Woods, Mich./Berkley HS) and freshmen Christian Sprang (Sicklerville, N.J./St. Augustine Prep) and Gunnar Schmidt (Scottsdale, Ariz./Arcadia) rounding out the top four. Patton then went on to defeat EMU's 2005 NCAA qualifier Dan Wohl by more than three seconds in the 200-yard butterfly at 1:52.06.
Bobby Savulich (Edison, N.J./Saint Joseph) continued Michigan's success when he led a freshman sweep of the first three spots in the 200-yard freestyle, touching the wall in 1:38.91. Sal Barba (Hudson, Mass./St. Johns HS) and Evan Ryser (Katy, Texas/James E. Taylor) were second and third, respectively, with times of 1:43.09 and 1:43.39.
U-M's tri-captains -- Tarwater, Peter Vanderkaay (Rochester, Mich./Adams HS) and DeJong -- proved their nomination as so, winning at least one individual event each. Vanderkaay controlled the pace in the 200-yard IM, defeating his closest competitors by more than three seconds in 1:50.42. He earned his second individual victory on the season in the 100-yard free in a time of 45.24. Rounding out the captains' success, Tarwater touched in at 20.74 during the 50-yard freestyle, while DeJong won by more than six seconds in the 500-yard freestyle at 4:31.28.
Dane Grenda (Hockessin, Del./Salesianum HS) also posted a win in the 200-yard backstroke in 1:50.77.
The Maize and Blue also posted the fastest times in the final two events of the night, but they were not scored because they swam exhibition. Burtch swam the fastest time in the 200-yard breaststroke, while the team of Tarwater, DeJong, Peter Vanderkaay and senior Jorge Carral (Mexico City, Mexico/Bolles School) posted the top time in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
The Wolverines take a week off before facing Georgia at 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at Canham Natatorium.
Q U O T E S
Michigan Swimming Coach Bob Bowman
On the season-opening meet ... "I think overall we swam pretty well. Half our team are freshmen, they don't really know what's going on, so considering that I thought they did a very nice job. I thought our divers did a really good job, with Kyle Schroeder actually making the NCAA regional cut, which is a really big plus for us. Overall I thought they raced pretty hard.
"We mixed the lineup up, it's hardly our best lineup, which makes me feel really good. We got some really good performances out of some of the older guys too, the seniors were all pretty good. Most of our returnees did better than they did this time last year by quite a bit so I'm feeling happy about that."
On the freshmen ... "(Matt) Patton was really good and (Bobby) Savulich did a really nice 200 free. Overall I thought the freshmen kind of lived up to expectations. Some of them were a little rocky because they just didn't know what to expect but it was good."
Michigan Diving Coach Chris Bergre
On freshman Kyle Schroeder's performance ... "His strongest event is the one-meter and I thought he would do a good job. I was really suprised that he dove so well, and he qualified for the NCAA qualifying meet which is really big for his first college meet. He shows a lot of potential, but this isn't even his best. He's going to be a lot better. It was exciting, I'm really happy for him. He got this out of the way so we don't have to worry about this anymore, the (NCAA qualifying) score. He's going to learn from this too. He's got a lot of things he needs to correct and that's what we're going to focus on. I'm certainly happy that he qualified for the meet, but he's got a long way to go still. But he shows great potential."
Players Mentioned
