NCAA Div. I Men: Texas Aggies Defeat LSU -- January 18, 2002

BATON ROUGE, La., Jan. 18. THE No. 19 Texas A&M men's swimming and diving team got back on the winning track Friday afternoon with a 141-89 defeat of 23rd-ranked Louisiana State University at LSU Natatorium.

The Aggies rebounded from last Saturday's loss to No. 2 Auburn by dominating the pool events. A&M won every swimming event with the exception of the 500-yard freestyle.

"I'm really proud of our guys," said A&M assistant coach Jay Holmes. "We had this meet won by the second diving break. We usually have tough, down-to-the-wire meets against LSU. Our guys have done a great job of taking care of business all year and did it again today."

The foursome of Riley Janes, Nik Tate, Robbie Taylor and Dan Blanchard swam a seasonal-best and provisional qualifying time of 1:29.05 to win the 200-yard medley relay, the day's first event. Janes, the four-time All-American swam a particularly strong 21.72 leg to open the relay.

Sophomore All-American Matt Rose continued to tear up the sprint freestyle events with wins in the 50 and 100-yard races. Rose just missed his seasonal best of 20.34 with a first place time of 20.41 in the 50 free. He did however turn the trick in the 100 free, swimming a provisional qualifying time of 44.93 in beating the field by nearly a second-and-a-half.

All-American Patrick Kennedy and sophomore Josh Hill finished 1-3 in the 200 freestyle. Kennedy missed the provisional qualifying standard by four-hundreths of a second, swimming 1:39.32. Kennedy has swam a qualifying mark in the race once already this season.

Sophomore Scott Mueller came within a second of his seasonal best in the 200 individual medley by winning in a time of :52.92.

Junior Patrick Dideum got back on the winning track with a win in the 1,000-yard freestyle. Dideum swam a seasonal-best time of 9:29.39 to beat Myles Jaynes of LSU by four-plus seconds. Dideum claimed second in the 500 freestyle, the only event A&M failed to win, in a time of 4:37.26.

Junior Matt Day crushed his yearly best in the 200-yard backstroke by almost three seconds in capturing the win in 1:50.96. Fellow junior Zach Widener did the same in the 200-yard breaststroke by swimming a time of 2:06.49.

Sophomore Scott Hansen topped his seasonal best in the 200-yard butterfly by .01 with a winning time of 1:51.37.

The foursome of Tate, Brett Ruoff, Ross Collins and Blanchard won the 200-freestyle relay in 1:24.52 after several of A&M's top swimmers hopped on a plane, with the outcome of the meet already in hand, in order to swim in the Dallas Morning News Swimming & Diving Classic in Dallas later Friday evening.

The Aggies move to 6-1 on the season and will travel to Monroe, La. to participate in a dual meet agianst the University of Louisiana-Monroe on Saturday at 11 a.m.