Swimming and Diving Celebrates Record Smashing Season

4/16/2014 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving

April 16, 2014

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - There is one portion of the Don Gambril Olympic Pool at the Alabama Aquatic Center, home of the Alabama swimming and diving teams, that has a decidedly different look after the Crimson Tide's most successful seasons in recent memory - the record board.

Alabama broke 21 school records this season, including 19 or 36 swimming marks and two of six diving records and Wednesday the Tide celebrated that success by updating huge record boards that hang on the walls of the AQC. One-by-one, the new record holders handed the plates that bore their name up the ladder where they were posted on the board.

"I've had my eye on the 100 breaststroke record since I got here," junior All-American Kaylin Burchell said. "It was good to see it go up there, and it was a lot of fun to have so many records go up there at the same time."

This season's round of record smashing came in just the second year of Dennis Pursley's tenure as the Tide's head coach and is just part of a larger effort to return Alabama to the nation's elite. The Tide's men jumped six spots at the SEC Championships, taking fourth, its highest finish since 1995. The men also climbed 16 spots at the NCAA Championships, the biggest leap in the nation between 2013 and 2014. The Tide women also made a leap at both the SEC and NCAA Championships in addition to breaking nine school records.

"This has been a pretty amazing year," Pursley said on Wednesday. "We had high expectations coming into this season, but I don't think there's any doubt that we exceeded every one of them. We're already back at work getting ready for this summer and next season, but today was definitely a lot of fun, getting to see those new records go up on the board. I'm proud of what this team and this coaching staff have been able to accomplish to this point and I'm excited about what our future holds."

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Alabama Swimming and Diving School Records set in 2014

Men

50 FREESTYLE	Kristian Gkolomeev	18.95
100 FREESTYLE	BJ Hornikel	42.39
200 FREESTYLE	BJ Hornikel	01:33.2
100 BACKSTROKE	Connor Oslin	46.33
200 BACKSTROKE	Connor Oslin	1:42.46
100 BREASTSTROKE	Anton McKee	51.70
200 BREASTSTROKE	Anton McKee	1:51.59
200 MEDLEY RELAY	Connor Oslin , Anton McKee, Brett Walsh, BJ Hornikel	01:24.5
400 MEDLEY RELAY	Connor Oslin , Anton McKee, Brett Walsh, BJ Hornikel	03:06.4
200 FREESTYLE RELAY	Kristian Gkolomeev, BJ Hornikel, Vlad Caciuc, Brett Walsh	01:16.3
400 FREESTYLE RELAY	Kristian Gkolomeev, BJ Hornikel, Vlad Caciuc, Brett Walsh	02:50.8
800 FREESTYLE RELAY	BJ Hornikel, Crews Wellford, Connor Oslin , Phillip Deaton	06:24.8

Women

50 FREESTYLE	Kristel Vourna	22.66
100 BACKSTROKE	Stephanie Kinsey	53.58
200 BACKSTROKE	Emma Saunders	1:55.64
100 BREASTSTROKE	Kaylin Burchell	59.17
200 MEDLEY RELAY	Stephanie Kinsey, Kaylin Burchell, Kristel Vourna, Justine Panian	01:37.2
400 MEDLEY RELAY	Stephanie Kinsey, Kaylin Burchell, Kristel Vourna, Emma Saunders	03:34.1
200 FREESTYLE RELAY	Kristel Vourna, Bailey Scott, Stephanie Kinsey, Justine Panian	01:29.8
1-METER DIVING	Paige McCleary	325.88
3-METER DIVING	Paige McCleary	377.7