Crystal Rasmussen Second at the SEC Swimming and Diving Championships

For Alabama senior Crystal Rasmussen her final Southeastern Conference Swimming and Diving Championship is turning out to be her best.

Yesterday, she took fifth place off the one-meter diving board, the highest conference finish of her career, until today that is. Today, Rasmussen scored 334.35 points off the three-meter board to grab the runner-up finish and post the Tide's highest finish of the championships so far. Last year she was 14th off the three-meter and sixth off the one-meter at the SEC Championships.

As a team, the Alabama women are eighth in Knoxville, Tenn. after scoring 146 points through the second day. Georgia leads the women's competition with 376 points. The Tide men are sixth with 190 points, just one point back of LSU. Auburn leads the men with 421 points.

Sophomore Erin Sparks scored in the 200 IM, finishing 11th with a 2:02.91. Sparks combined with junior Melina Bassino and seniors Kathryn Hallquist and Alison Lafevers to take eighth place in the 200 freestyle relay with a 1:34.90.

Junior Apostolis Tsagkarakis finaled in the 50 freestyle, taking sixth with a 19.90, just off his career best of 19.84. Senior Darren Erasmus also scored in the 50, touching at 20.42 to take 12th place. His 20.10 in the preliminaries was just off his career best of 20.06.

Freshman Mark Randall took eighth in the 500 freestyle with a 4:22.26, a time which puts him eighth all-time for the Tide. Sophomore Ryan Latone also scored in the 500, placing 18th with a career-best 4:31.44. Junior Aaron Ashworth, third off the three-meter board yesterday, took ninth place off the one-meter board today, scoring 269.10 points, whole sophomore Chad Frichtl scored 240.67 points to take 16th place.

The 200 freestyle relay of Tsagkarakis, Erasmus, sophomore Mike Jones and senior Spiros Bitsakis took fifth with a 1:20.05, just off the school record of 1:19.56 set last year by the same four-some

Competition continues on Friday with Alabama's Vlad Polyakov, the No. 1 seed, steps onto the blocks to defend his 2005 100 breaststroke title.

Women - Team Rankings - Through Event 16

Rank	Team	Score
1	University of Georgia	376 points
2	Auburn University	338 points
3	University of Kentucky	330 points
4	University of Florida	239 points
5	University of Tennessee	230 points
6	University of South Carolina	210 points
7	Louisiana State University	153 points
8	University of Alabama	146 points
9	University of Arkansas	75 points

Men - Team Rankings - Through Event 16

Rank	Team	Score
1	Auburn University	421 points
2	University of Florida	351 points
3	University of Georgia	316 points
4	Univ. of Tennessee	248 points
5	Louisiana State University	191 points
6	University of Alabama	190 points
7	University of Kentucky	160 points
8	University of South Carolina	148 points

University of Alabama Athletics