Alabama Swimming and Diving Close 2020 SEC Championships with Four More Titles

Saturday, February 22

Auburn, Ala.

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SEC Championships

Alabama Swimming and Diving Close 2020 SEC Championships with Four More Titles

2/22/2020 10:14:00 PM | Swimming & Diving

Photo Gallery 2020 SEC Championships Complete Results

Kensey McMahon, Rhyan White, Tanesha Lucoe and the men's 400 freestyle relay all won SEC gold on the championships' final day

AUBURN, Ala. – At the 2020 Southeastern Conference Swimming and Diving Championships, the winner of an event hears their school's fight song as they receive their gold medal, which means, "Yea, Alabama" played a lot this week on the deck of the James E. Martin Aquatic Center in Auburn, Ala., with the Crimson Tide leading the conference with nine titles on the week, including four on Saturday, the meet's final day.

Sophomores Kensey McMahon and Rhyan White opened the meet's final session with titles in the 1,650 freestyle and 200 backstroke, respectively, while freshman Tanesha Lucoe and junior Tyler Sesvold, senior Zane Waddell and sophomores Jonathan Berneburg and Colton Stogner, closed the night and the meet by winning the women's platform diving and 400 freestyle relay titles, respectively.

Alabama's men used a big final day to move up into fourth place with 935.5 points, climbing two spots from last year and earning their best finish since also taking fourth in 2017. The Crimson Tide women took seventh place after totaling 748 points, jumping four places from last season and posting their best team finish since also finishing seventh in 2012.

Waddell, who won the 50 freestyle and 100 backstroke earlier in the week and took second in the 100 freestyle on Saturday, earned the SEC Commissioners Trophy, which goes to the individual high point scorer at the championships.

McMahon opened finals by leading the 1,650 freestyle from wire-to-wire to collect Alabama women's first SEC title in the event by nearly 10 seconds. The sophomore made her move early, getting out in front by more than a body length over the first 200 and building her lead from there. Her winning time of 15:43.74 bettered her school record by nearly 10 seconds, while her 9:29.35 over the first 40 laps of the race dropped the school mark in the 1,000 freestyle by nearly seven seconds.

One event later, White, who broke the SEC and school record in prelims, won the 200 backstroke with a time of 1:48.15, bettering the field by more than a second. Her 1:48.06 in prelims shaved a quarter of a second off the old SEC record and just shy of two seconds off her school record from the fall. It was her second SEC title of the meet after winning the 100 backstroke earlier in the week.

Lucoe was stunning in the women's platform event, tallying a school-record 338.75 to win the SEC title by more than 50 points, giving Alabama its first diving title since 2009.

Waddell was second in the 100 freestyle by just one-hundredth of a second, after posting a career-best 41.82.

The women's 400 freestyle of sophomores Kalia Antoniou and Morgan Scott, junior Flora Molnar and White used a school record 3:12.29 to reach the podium in the women's 400 freestyle relay, taking third place. Antoniou was seventh in the women's 100 freestyle with a time of 47.71.

Freshmen Liam Bell (1:52.93) and Derek Maas (1:53.15) both swam career-best times to take fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 200 breaststroke. Freshman Matt Menke went 1:41.75 to finish fifth in the men's 200 backstroke after posting a career-best 1:41.56 in prelims. Sophomore Nico Hernandez-Tome dropped more than 15 seconds off his career-best time in the 1,650 freestyle, posting a 14:56.39 to finish sixth.

Head Coach Coley Stickels Said

"We closed so strong today. I was proud of the way we kept scrapping for every point and moved up in the team standings on both the men's and women's sides of the meet. The women moved up four spots from last year and had our best finish since 2012 and the men jumped two spots from last year and had our best finish since 2017. We had a lot of different people score points this year and that made a difference. It was definitely a total team effort on both sides. We had a shot at being top two if everything had gone just right and that's where our sights are set heading into next year. Rhyan and Zane had spectacular meets and our relays really stepped up this week. Kensey followed her game plan to the letter in the mile and came away with a dominating win. Tanesha came in as a freshman and not only won the platform but did it by 50 points. We closed out the meet in a big way, with Zane, Tyler, Jonny and Colton getting the win in the 400 freestyle relay from the outside lane. The momentum for both teams is really high, and I want to see us carry this forward to the national championships in a couple of weeks."

Falling Records

Alabama broke the SEC record in four different events, with White breaking the 100 and 200 backstroke marks, Waddell breaking the 100 backstroke record and Waddell, Sesvold, Berneburg and Bell breaking the SEC 400 medley mark.
In addition to taking down a quartet of SEC marks, the Tide bettered the school standard in 19 events this week, including 14 for the women and five for the men.

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