Alabama Swimming and Diving Loses to No. 1 Auburn
1/31/2003 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - In the midst of an incredible day of racing the Alabama men and women's swimming and diving teams fell to the Auburn Tigers.
Both the Tiger men and women are ranked No. 1 in the nation right now. The Tide women fell 163-127 while the men lost 175-114 in the Don Gambril Olympic Pool.
"We raced really well today," Alabama head coach Don Wagner said. "They (Auburn) have incredible talent and they demonstrated it tonight. But there is no doubt that they were in a meet tonight. We are the best that we have been in a long time, and we are just going to improve."
The Alabama women's team started the meet strong in the 200 yard medley relay, posting a season best of 1:42.92. Alabama's relay team consisted of freshman Kathryn Hallquist, junior Anne Poleska and freshmen Candace Weimann and Alison LaFevers.
Poleska won the 200 yard breaststroke and the 200 yard individual medley. The highlight of the meet was Poleska's performance in the breaststroke pulling in a season best time of 2:10.62, almost nine seconds in front of Auburn's Maggie Bowen. Poleska won the 200 IM with a season best 2:02.87. Weimann was also a double winner in the 200 yard freestyle with a time of 1:50.78 and in the 100 yard butterfly notching a season best time of 54.47.
Junior Lane Bassham was dominant on both the women's one and three meter diving events scoring 310.28 and 329.93 respectively. Junior Catalina Casaru won the 200 yard backstroke with a time of 2:02.70.
On the men's side of the slate, the Tide went one-two in the 200 freestyle when sophomore Spiros Bitsakis won the 200 yard freestyle with a time of 1:39.68 and junior James Wilcox was right behind with a 1:39.76. Sophomore Stefan Gherghel won the 200 butterfly in 1:48.25 and freshman Apostolis Tsagarakis got the victory in the 50 yard freestyle with a season best of 20.57. Vlad Polyakov continued Alabama's dominance in the 200 yard breastroke coming in with a season best of 1:58.32, just .03 of a second behind Chris McDaniels' 1989 record.
Alabama Swimming and Diving will be back in action tomorrow at 1:00 when they face the South Carolina Gamecocks. This will be the Tide's final home meet of the season.
