The Week That Was: Week 17
1/27/2009 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
Jan. 21, 2009
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The Alabama Swimming and Diving team capped another strong week in the pool with its first dual meet of the New Year, taking on Kentucky in Lexington. The Crimson Tide came out on the short end of both the men's and women's meets despite some outstanding performances.
"We had some good swims and we dove well," head coach Eric McIlquham said. "We were in a position to win the meet and we just didn't pull it out. There were some good things that came out of the meet, Mark Randall is putting himself in a great position to be successful in the championship season, so it Aaron Fleshner. Riley Boulden has been very consistent in doing a nice job for us. We just have to keep getting better."
The Tide lost diver Baylee Ellson for the season at the Kentucky meet when the sophomore broke her hand after hitting the board in one of her dives. Ellson scored off all three boards at last year's Southeastern Conference Championships.
"That was tough, losing Baylee like that," McIlquham said. "It's obviously hard for her and for our team. She'll be back though and we just have to keep moving forward."
The Tide enjoyed another good week of training going into the Kentucky meet and is putting itself in a position to have a strong postseason run, the team's ultimate goal.
"We had a great week of training going into the meet, in terms of where we are in our season, which was nice," McIlquham said. "We popped some great swims in workouts prior to going up to Kentucky. We have to carry over our great workout swims into awesome meet performances. We have to get to that. The work is there, I'm not worried about the work. We've done a great job with that over the course of the season. We've done a really nice job with that and that's what has us excited about the end of the year and what's coming up."
Alabama has one more regular season meet, finishing off at home in a tri-meet against Georgia and South Carolina at 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 31 at the Alabama Aquatic Center.
"We've got the Georgia/South Carolina meet coming up," McIlquham said. "That will be our last regular season meet, so we're rolling toward that. We're also in the process of solidifying our conference team, not just from the last couple of weeks of the season, but the whole body of work."
Players Mentioned
