Michigan
NCAA Championships
Vanderkaay Wins National Title in 400 Individual Medley
3/16/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming & Diving
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- Junior Alex Vanderkaay (Rochester, Mich./Adams) won the NCAA title in the 400-yard individual medley to lead the 10th-ranked University of Michigan men's swimming and diving team Friday (March 16) on the second day of the NCAA Championships at the University Aquatic Center. U-M sits in seventh place with 141 points.
Vanderkaay's title- winning time of 3:40.89 in the 400 IM was nearly four seconds faster than his prelims time.
Vanderkaay won the first NCAA title of his career when he clocked a career-best 3:40.89 in the 400-yard IM. Leading the entire length of the race, Vanderkaay shaved more than 3.5 seconds off his previous best time of 3:44.38. The victory was U-M's first NCAA championship in the 400-yard IM since Tim Siciliano (1999-2002) won the event in 2001 with a time of 3:40.77.
Also earning All-America recognition in the event was junior Dane Grenda (Hockessin, Del./Salesianum), who took sixth place with a time of 3:46.45. Freshman Andr Schultz (Sao Paulo, Brazil/Colegio Palmares) added to the U-M point total when he placed 12th in the event with a time of 3:47.09. During prelims, both Grenda and Schultz touched the wall in career-best times, with Grenda clocking 3:45.61 and Schultz finishing in 3:46.65. Overall, the Wolverines earned a total 38 points in the event.
In the night's final event, the 800-yard freestyle relay, the U-M squad of sophomore Bobby Savulich (Edison, N.J./St. Joseph), sophomore Matt Patton (Matthews, N.C./Butler), sophomore Sal Barba (Hudson, Mass./St. Johns) and Vanderkaay combined for a fifth-place finish with a time of 6:21.11. The performance gave Savulich and Barba each his first career All-America honor, while it was Patton's second of the weekend and Vanderkaay's seventh career All-America award and his third of the weekend.
The Wolverines added two scoring performances in the 100-yard butterfly, as sophomore Curtis Dauw (St. Charles, Ill./St. Charles East) and freshman Chris Brady (Wilmington, Del./Mount Pleasant) placed 11th and 15th, respectively. Dauw swam a career best of 46.90, while Brady clocked 47.29.
Also scoring for Michigan were Barba in the 200-yard freestyle and freshman Scott Spann (Austin, Texas/Westlake) in the 100-yard breaststroke. Barba, who took 12th, touched the wall in 1:35.42 after clocking a personal best of 1:34.39 during prelims. Spann placed 13th and set a new personal best with a time of 53.74.
Earlier in the preliminaries, the U-M 200-yard medley relay squad was the third Wolverine relay team of the weekend to set a school record. The foursome of Patton, Spann, Brady and sophomore Evan Ryser (Katy, Texas/James E. Taylor) recorded a time of 1:27.31, just missing the consolation final cut by 0.02 seconds. The previous school record was 1:27.50 and was set by the 2005 team of Chris DeJong (2003-06), Christian Vanderkaay (2001-02, '04-05), Davis Tarwater (2003-06) and Peter Vanderkaay (2003-06).
The Wolverines will return to the pool tomorrow (Saturday, March 17) for the final day of competition, with preliminaries beginning at noon CDT and finals at 7 p.m. CDT.
Top 10 Teams (After Day 2)
1. Auburn 380 2. Arizona 278 3. Stanford 261 4. Texas 225 5. Florida 199 6. Northwestern 157 7. MICHIGAN 141 8. California 125 9. Southern Cal 106 10. Tennessee 94
Top Eight/U-M Finishers (Day 2)
(Preliminary time in parentheses if faster than finals time)
200-yard Medley Relay 1. Auburn 1:23.37$% 2. Stanford 1:24.85 3. Tennessee 1:25.69 4. Southern Methodist 1:26.81 5. Minnesota 1:27.09 -- Northwestern DQ -- Texas DQ -- Arizona DQ 17. MICHIGAN 1:27.31@ (Matt Patton, Scott Spann, Chris Brady, Evan Ryser) 400-yard Individual Medley 1. ALEX VANDERKAAY, U-M 3:40.89+ 2. Lucas Salatta, Florida 3:41.08 3. Pat Mellors, Virginia 3:42.03 4. Vanni Mangoni, USC 3:43.93 5. Ally Bradley, Florida 3:44.41 6. DANE GRENDA, U-M 3:46.45 (3:45.61+) 7. Julius Gloeckner, LSU 3:47.76 8. Caleb McDermott, Texas 3:47.84 12. ANDRE SCHULTZ, U-M 3:47.09 (3:46.65+) 100-yard Butterfly 1. Albert Subirats, Arizona 44.57#$% 2. Ben Wildman-Tobriner, Stanford 45.36 3. Matt Targett, Auburn 45.87 4. Kyle Bubolz, Northwestern 45.93 5. Alexei Puninski, Auburn 46.06 6. Patrick Oneil, California 46.59 7. Jason Dunford, Stanford 46.70 8. Jakob Andkjaer, Auburn 46.76 11. CURTIS DAUW, U-M 46.90+ 15. CHRIS BRADY, U-M 47.29 (47.06) 200-yard Freestyle 1. Darian Townsend, Arizona 1:33.29 2. Dominik Meichtry, California 1:33.45 3. Adam Ritter, Arizona 1:33.76 4. Jean Basson, Arizona 1:33.85 5. Nick Nilo, Arizona 1:33.90 6. Shaun Phillips, Stanford 1:34.01 7. Andy Grant, Stanford 1:34.11 8. Dave Walters, Texas 1:35.49 12. SAL BARBA, U-M 1:35.42 (1:35.39+) 28. BOBBY SAVULICH, U-M 1:36.72 30. EVAN RYSER, U-M 1:36.94+ 100-yard Breaststroke 1. Mike Alexandrov, Northwestern 51.56#*$% 2. Paul Kornfeld, Stanford 52.19 3. Vlad Polyakov, Alabama 52.25 4. Tyler Ohalloran, Texas 52.66 5. Keenan Newman, Stanford 52.94 6. Jonathan Roberts, Auburn 53.01 7. Alex Hetland, Southern Methodist 53.15 8. Ivan Barnes, Arizona 53.46 13. SCOTT SPANN, U-M 53.74+ 100-yard Backstroke 1. Albert Subirats, Arizona 44.83% 2. Ben Hesen, Indiana 45.45 3. Matt Grevers, Northwestern 45.61 4. Tom Sacco, Texas 46.84 5. James Wike, Auburn 46.87 6. Brad Boswell, Tennessee 46.88 7. Bryan Lundquist, Auburn 46.96 8. David Russel, California DQ Three-meter Diving 1. Steven Segerlin, Auburn 415.80 2. Kellen Harkness, Ohio State 407.15 3. Magnus Frick, Hawaii 407.05 4. Eric Sehn, Texas A&M 399.20 5. Brandon Watson, BYU 386.85 6. Aaron Fleshner, Alabama 386.00 7. Jeremy Stultz, Pittsburgh 383.85 8. Terry Horner, Florida State 383.15 800-yard Freestyle Relay 1. Arizona 6:14.14#*$% 2. Florida 6:17.82 3. Stanford 6:17.92 4. Texas 6:20.78 5. MICHIGAN 6:21.11 (Bobby Savulich, Matt Patton, Sal Barba, Alex Vanderkaay) 6. Auburn 6:24.80 7. California 6:25.48 8. Minnesota 6:26.41 # U.S. Open record * American record $ NCAA record % University Aquatics Center record @ Michigan school record + Career-best time
Day 1 Results
Q U O T E S
Michigan Head Coach Bob Bowman
On Alex Vanderkaay's championship performance ... "I think Alex deserves everything he gets because he is such a hard worker and has such a great attitude toward the team and his place on the team. I just think that the work that he has done over the past three years has culminated in his first national title, and I really look forward to seeing him do some more of this."
On his thoughts about where the team stands heading into the final day ... "We continue to really improve from our performances from the Big Ten Championships, which is our goal here. I am extremely pleased. I think that tomorrow could be our best day of the meet. We'll rest up tonight and try to come back tomorrow and put everything we have into prelims so that it will give us a lot of scoring potential for tomorrow, and we'll see how high we can place."
U-M Junior Alex Vanderkaay
On his 400 IM national title ... "It feels great; I'm still a little shocked. I didn't think I would get that time. I am just truly honored. Michigan has a great history, and I am just honored to join [it] by having a national title."
On the team's performance through two days ... "We are doing great. No one expected us with our lower ranking, yet we are [seventh] right now and tomorrow is one of our best days, so we are hopefully turning some heads."
Contact: Tim Trunzo (734) 763-4423
Players Mentioned
