Feb. 19, 2003
Aubrun, Ala. – The University of Kentucky men’s and women’s swimming and diving team had a record-setting day Wednesday, Feb. 18 at the Southeastern Conference Swimming and Diving Championship at Auburn’s James E. Martin Aquatic Center.
The men’s swim team set a school record in the 200-medley relay with a time of 1:28.06. Fernando Barros, Roger Watkins, Daniel Cruz and Clay Casparovich beat the previous record of 1:28.32 set by Barros, Watkins, Shaun Zitani and Aaron Workman in 2001. The team finished fifth on Wednesday, ahead of Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina. The finish also marked the first time ever the Cats finished in front of UT. In the 800-free relay, Cruz, Joey Faltraco, Steven Manley and Daniel Farnham finished with a time of 6:29.89, which would have been good for fourth place and a berth in the NCAA Championship. However, the team was disqualified for a false start negating the result. The highlight for the women was an eighth-place finish in the 200-medley relay (1:44.65) and the 800-free relay (7:30.32).
“We were real happy with the intensity today,” Coach Gary Conelly said. “We were disappointed for the men’s relay team, but overall we had a pretty good day. It’s only the first day of the meet, so we’ll see what happens as the week goes on.”
In men’s diving, senior All-American Clayton Moss was looking to win his third-consecutive 1-meter springboard title. Moss led the pack heading into the sixth and final dive with a score of 294.00. After Florida’s Zach Wilcox finished his final dive, Moss needed 51.3 points to secure his third-straight SEC title, but Moss missed on his final dive and scored just 45.5 points to finish in second.
“I’m not disappointed with my (second-place) finish,” Moss said. “This is a sport where perfection is key, and it didn’t happen tonight. I had fun and this is just the first day, so we’ll see what happens the rest of the week.”
After the first day of competition, South Carolina leads the women with 92 points. UK is in ninth with 51 points. For the men, Florida leads with 96 points and the Cats are in eighth with 45 points. Thursday’s events will be the 500-free, 200-IM, 50-free, 200-free relay and women’s 1-meter diving. Preliminaries for the swimming will begin at 10:30 a.m. CT and the diving preliminaries will be at 1:30 p.m. CT. The finals for all events begin at 6:30 p.m. CT.
