Michigan
NCAA Championships
Patton, Vanderkaay Win All-America in 500 Freestyle
3/15/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming & Diving
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- All-America performances by sophomore Matt Patton (Matthews, N.C./Butler) and junior Alex Vanderkaay (Rochester, Mich./Adams), in addition to school records by both relay squads, led the 10th-ranked University of Michigan men's swimming and diving team on the first day (Thursday, March 15) of the NCAA Championships at the University Aquatic Center in Minneapolis, Minn. U-M sits in eighth place with 58 points, just two points behind USC for seventh.
Patton and Vanderkaay placed fourth and sixth, respectively, in the 500-yard freestyle. Patton touched the wall in a career-best time of 4:14.91 to earn the first All-America honors of his young career. Last season, Patton just missed qualifying for the consolation final when he placed 17th in prelims with a time of 4:21.28. Vanderkaay also recorded a career-best time, clocking 4:15.75 to earn his fifth All-America honor of his career and second straight in the event.
The Wolverines opened up the evening with an 11th place finish in the 200-freestyle relay. The team of sophomore Bobby Savulich (Edison, N.J./St. Joseph), freshman Chris Brady (Wilmington, Del./Mt. Pleasant), sophomore Evan Ryser (Katy, Texas/James E. Taylor) and sophomore Curtis Dauw (St. Charles, Ill./St. Charles East) captured a time of 1:18.88 to earn 12 points for Michigan and set a new school record. The previous record of 1:19.45 was set by Gustavo Borges, Jason Lancaster, Daniel Abruzzi and Derya Buyukuncu in 1995.
The Wolverines closed the evening with an 18 point ninth place performance that also set a school record in the 400-yard medley relay. The squad of Patton, freshman Scott Spann (Austin, Texas/Westlake), Brady and Savulich clocked 3:10.44 to break the second school record of the night. The team just missed the championship final by .28 seconds when they clocked 3:11.07 in prelims. The previous school record was 3:11.04 and was set in 2005 by Chris DeJong, Christian Vanderkaay, Davis Tarwater and Peter Vanderkaay.
Earlier in the preliminaries, Dauw narrowly missed swimming the 200-yard individual medley at night, as he tied for 18th place. His time of 1:46.35 was a personal best and was just 0.15 seconds shy of making consolation final cut.
The Wolverines will return to the pool Friday (March 16) for day two of the championships with preliminaries beginning at noon CST and finals to follow at 7 p.m. CST.
Top 10 Teams (After Day 1)
1. Auburn 187 2. Arizona 121 3. Texas 107 4. Northwestern 106 Florida 106 6. Stanford 100 7. USC 60 8. MICHIGAN 58 9. California 52 10. Ohio State 39
Top Eight/U-M Finishers (Day 1)
(Preliminary time in parentheses if faster than finals time)
200-yard Freestyle Relay 1. Auburn 1:14.71$% 2. Stanford 1:15.97 3. Arizona 1:16.26 4. Northwestern 1:16.65 5. Texas 1:17.45 (1:16.94) 6. California 1:17.68 (1:17.21) 7. West Virginia 1:18.78 (1:18.18) 8. Florida 1:18.89 (1:18.27) 11. MICHIGAN 1:18.88@ (Bobby Savulich, Chris Brady, Evan Ryser, Curtis Dauw) 500-yard Freestyle 1. Larsen Jensen, USC 4:09.80% 2. Shaun Phillips, Stanford 4:13.07 3. Jean Basson, Arizona 4:13.44 4. MATT PATTON, U-M 4:14.91+ 5. Michael Klueh, Texas 4:14.95 6. ALEX VANDERKAAY, U-M 4:15.75+ 7. Matt McGinnis, Texas 4:16.14 (4:15.95) 8. Sebastien Rouault, Georgia 4:23.12 (4:16.05) 33. CHARLIE HOUCHIN, U-M 4:24.74 36. CHRISTIAN SPRANG, U-M 4:25.83 200-yard Individual Medley 1. Adam Ritter, Arizona 1:41.72 2. Matt Grevers, Northwestern 1:41.96 3. Lucas Salatta, Florida 1:43.69 4. Bradley Ally, Florida 1:43.85 5. Shaune Fraser, Florida 1:44.93 (1:44.67) 6. Mike Alexandrov, Northwestern 1:45.26 (1:44.57) 7. Pat Mellors, Virginia 1:45.61 (1:44.99) 8. James Wike, Auburn 1:46.06 (1:44.96) 18. CURTIS DAUW, U-M 1:46.35+ 22. ANDRE SCHULTZ, U-M 1:46.50+ 23. DANE GRENDA, U-M 1:46.83+ 50-yard Freestyle 1. Cesar Cielo, Auburn 18.69#$% 2. Matt Targett, Auburn 19.08 Ben Tobriner-Wildman, Stanford 19.08 (18.98) Albert Subirats, Arizona 19.08 5. Scott Goodrich, Auburn 19.29 6. Garret Weber-Gale, Texas 19.33 (19.16) 7. Apostol Tsagkarakis, Alabama 19.48 (19.32) 8. Bryan Lundquist, Auburn 19.49 (19.18) 40. BOBBY SAVULICH, U-M 20.21 One-meter Diving 1. Terry Horner, Florida State 399.35 2. Magnus Frick, Hawaii 395.05 3. Steven Segerlin, Auburn 371.40 4. Kellen Harkness, Ohio State 359.55 5. Eric Sehn, Texas A&M 347.45 6. Kelly Marx, Auburn 345.70 7. Zach Schultz, Purdue 330.10 8. Ruben Ross, Miami 315.15 400-yard Medley Relay 1. Northwestern 3:04.40$% 2. Texas 3:05.69 3. Auburn 3:06.09 4. Arizona 3:06.29 5. Tennessee 3:09.48 6. Florida 3:09.65 7. USC 3:12.38 (3:10.59) 8. Stanford DQ (3:08.58) 9. MICHIGAN 3:10.44@ (Matt Patton, Scott Spann, Chris Brady, Bobby Savulich)
# U.S. Open record $ NCAA record % University Aquatics Center record @ Michigan school record + Career-best time
Q U O T E S
Michigan Head Coach Bob Bowman
On Patton and Vanderkaay ... "They did great. They came in with their times from Big Ten's, which were already very good, and they topped them in prelims. Then they were able to come back and shave off a full second at night and that's hard to do at this meet. I am very proud of them."
On both relay teams setting school records ... "I am very proud of those guys for doing such a good job at prelims to put us in a position to come back and break those records tonight. It really speaks to how excited we are about the future because those were all young guys on those relays and we have a lot of improvement that we can make."
On his overall thoughts after day one ... "I think we had about as good of a first day that we could have and I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. Hopefully we can keep the momentum going and give us some more points."
Contact: Tim Trunzo (734) 763-4423
Players Mentioned
