Aggies Lead at Reveille Invitational

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Nov. 3. THE Texas A&M men's swimming team holds a 173-point lead over Southern Methodist University at the Reveille Invitational being held Friday and Saturday at the Student Rec Center Natatorium.

The Aggies have outscored the Mustangs 691-518 at the halfway mark of the meet. Overall, A&M has won seven of the eight events, including all three individual competitions.

Sophomore Scott Hansen, who is battling a mild case of mononucleosis, won the 400-yard butterfly in a time of 4:02.43. The distance is twice as long as the longest NCAA butterfly event.

Freshman Alfredo Jacobo surged over the final 100 yards of the 400-yard breaststroke to hold off SMU's Tim Carlson with a time of 4:32.67 in one of the evening's tighter races. A&M picked up 70 points in the 400 breast, its highest scoring individual event of the night.

Open water distance phenom Patrick Dideum cruised to a 25-plus second victory in the 3000-yard freestyle. The Aggie junior covered the nearly two-mile course in 30:16.10.

In the one event A&M lost, the 900-yard backstroke relay, the Aggies had finished one-two, but had both teams disqualified for early starts on relay exchanges. SMU's "A" team defeated the Aggies "C" team 8:21.78 to 8:33.74.

The threesome of Robbie Taylor, Riley Janes and Matt Rose picked up the first victory of the night with a time of 1:17.31 in the 200-yard freestyle relay. Each man swam 25-yard legs at a time.

The Aggies went one-two in the second event of the night, the 600-yard medley relay. The same threesome that won the night's first event was victorious again with the underclassman trio of Calvin Zielsdorf, Scott Meller and Josh Hill coming in second.

A&M duplicated the one-two effort in the 900-yard freestyle relay with Patrick Kennedy, Dan Blanchard and Hill swimming a time of 7:28.10 for first place. The trio of Taylor, Janes and Rose finished second in a time of 7:28.25.

In the final relay event of the night, the 1000-yard freestyle, Kennedy, Rose and Hill combined for another maroon-and-white win, swimming a time of 8:23.49.

"The meet is very interesting," said head coach Mel Nash. "It's really different than what we normally do. It's a great workout for our guys and scoring it pulls more out of them. (Scott) Hansen won the toughest race of the night and has a touch of mono. Taylor, Janes and Rose were great. Josh Hill is really coming into his own. Scott Mueller put together a couple of really solid performances. Everyone swam a lot of events and did a nice job all the way across the board."

The meet is taking on a different format than most in that each of the 16 total events are differing from those to be swam at the NCAA Championships. The only way for a swimmer to qualify for the national meet would be to swim a qualifying time on the leadoff leg of a relay.

The meet will resume at 10 a.m. on Saturday with five relay and three individual events. Admission is free.

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