Swimming & Diving Opens Season with Friday Intrasquad Meet
10/2/2002 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
The Alabama Swimming and Diving team will kick off their competitive season with its annual Crimson vs. White intrasquad meet at the Don Gambril Olympic Pool Friday (Oct. 5) at 5 p.m.
The event will mark the debut of the 2002-03 squad, one that is populated with 17 freshmen between the men and women's squads along with 27 veterans. Both teams are coming off NCAA top-20 finishes, marking the first time both squads have reached that elite level in the same year since 1994.
The teams were picked by the captains. In addition to the intrasquad on Friday, the Tide's present and future will get to test itself against its past on Saturday (Oct. 6) as the Alumni Meet will get underway at 11 a.m.
Head coach Don Wagner, who has led the Tide back to the nation's elite, has high hopes for his teams, but knows that how far they progress up the national ladder will depend in large part to how well his 10 rookie men and seven rookie women make the adjustment from high school to major college swimming.
"I think this can be a very good team, but how far we can go depends to some degree on how our freshmen develop," Wagner said. "And the first glimpse of how far along we are in their development will come Friday and Saturday."
Of course, the Tide's veterans will also have a large part in how high the Tide can rise this year. The men's team will be led by sophomore Stefan Gherghel, a butterfly ace who last season became only the second freshman in Tide history to win an NCAA title when he took top honors in the 200 butterfly. His time was the third fastest in the history of the event, trailing only past Olympic champions Pablo Morales and Melvin Stewart. He surpassed another Olympic champion, Jon Sieben, in bettering the school mark set in 1985.
On the diving boards, the men will be led by sophomore Stewart Smith, who came in as a rookie and earned All-American honors.
On the women's side, the junior Anne Poleska not only repeated as Southeastern Conference Champion in the 100 and 200 breaststroke, but she finished third in both events at the NCAA Championships. Her NCAA time in the 200 breaststroke was the fourth fastest in the history of the event.
Diver Lane Bassham, a redshirt junior, returned to action last year after sitting out the 2000-01 season after off-season wrist surgery. Bassham proved she hadn't missed a beat, winning the three-meter board at the SEC Championships and earning All-American honors off both the one and three-meter boards at the NCAA Championships.
Admission to the intrasquad is free.
