Alabama's Swimming and Diving Season Underway
10/27/2002 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
The Alabama swimming and diving teams had success in two different locale's last night as the men and the women started their seasons in two different states.
Most of Alabama's women are at the Dallas Swimming and Diving Classic, an elite early season shoot out that features the nation's best teams. The Classic allows teams to bring nine swimmers and one diver to the event and all swims are the 'glamour' events, with the distance events left out of the meet.
The Tide men and eight members of the women's team faced Louisiana-Monroe in the their first dual meets of the season. Alabama's men dominated the Statesmen, winning all but one event, taking a 152-61 win. The Tide women with just five swimmers and three divers swam a gutsy meet, but the lack of numbers caught up with them, falling 139-72.
At the Dallas Classic Alabama is in fifth place with 123 points after day one of the two day event. Host school SMU is in first with 170 points.
Head coach Don Wagner, who is with the Tide's Dallas contingent, said that overall the Tide competed well on day one, though there were some ragged swims mixed in that was due largely to the amount of hard work that the Tide had done coming into the weekend.
"We had some pretty good events today especially with Lane (Bassham) coming out with a win," Wagner said. "And Candace Weiman in the 100 butterfly, taking second with a 54.66, that was a smoking swim. There's no doubt it was pretty impressive. It's been a good meet so far and we're just going to get better."
All-American diver Lane Bassham opened things up for Alabama with a win off the one-meter board, dominating the competition by 30 points.
Weiman, who looked especially strong at the Tide's intersquad meet earlier in the month, raced to a second place finish in the 100 butterfly behind Cal's Olympian Natalie Coughlin. Weiman's time of 54.66 makes her the fourth fastest 100 butterflyer in Tide history. Freshman Victoria Genova took ninth in the 100 butterfly with a 56.49.
Junior Anne Poleska swam took third in the 100 breaststroke with a 1:04.56 while junior Ann Ross took 12th with a 1:11.38. Freshman Anna Grant finished fifth in the 200 freestyle with a 1:54.49 while Ross notched another 12th place finish with a 1:55.95.
Freshman Kathryn Hallquist took fifth in the 100 backstroke with a 58.70 while classmate Anna Grant took ninth with a 59.44. Freshman Alison Lafevers went 25.03 in the 50 freestyle, good for a sixth place finish while Hallquist turned in a 25.40, finishing 12th. Junior Catalina Casaru took fifth in the 400 IM with a 4:28.00 while Genova took 11th with a 4:29.61.
The Tide's 400 medley relay of Hallquist, Poleska, Weiman and Lafevers took fourth with a time of 3:48.50. The 800 freestyle relay of Weiman, Poleska, Grant and Casaru touched fifth with a 7:38.06.
