Texas A&M women's swimming and diving team celebrated winning the Big 12 championship late Saturday evening.
They did most of the work in the morning session.
The Aggies were a perfect 14 of 14 in getting swimmers from the preliminaries into the finals, which played favorably into protecting the 662-618 lead they took into the fourth and final day of the meet held at the A&M Student Rec Center Natatorium.
"We talked about that," A&M head coach Steve Bultman said. "We knew if we took care of business this morning it was going to be pretty much really hard for [Texas] to do it. It was so clutch for our girls to do that."
The Aggies finished with 1,002 points to the Longhorns' 903. Missouri was third in the six team event.
If Bultman had any worries going into the night session, they were quickly erased with the first-place performances of Kristen Heiss in the 200 backstroke.
Heiss, who had to sit out last season because of shoulder surgery, touched the wall in 1:53.58, raised her thumb into the air, looked over at Bultman and her teammates and smiled from ear to ear as if to say it's ours.
"The 200 back is a strong event for us and to have four of them place in the top six was big to get off to a great start like that," Bultman said.
It was just the warmup for the Aggie senior class, in particular Julia Wilkinson and Alia Atkinson, who both bettered their meet records in their final individual Big 12 swims.
"It's been a long five years and I thought it would never end so it's kind of a shock but I wanted to go out with a bang and I think I did," Wilkinson said. "Kristen and I have talked about this. We kind of feel this class is our class now. My heart will always be with the '09 girls but we were just as good of friends with the girls from 2010 and they totally accepted us as their class."
Wilkinson, the Canadian Olympian who also had to redshirt a year because of a shoulder injury, broke her meet record in the 100 freestyle from two years ago by six-hundredths of a second with a 47.74.
"Last year was hard on me mentally but I would do it all again for what just happened," Wilkinson said. "When you have to sit out you realize how much you want to do it."
It was Wilkinson's third individual gold of the meet -- she won the 100 backstroke and 200 IM -- and the eighth of her decorated career at A&M.
Wilkinson was selected the swimmer of the meet for the second time. She won in it her junior year in 2008.
Alia Atkinson, second last year in the 200 breaststroke at NCAAs, touched in 2:08.07, bettering her 2009 mark by .52. It gave her two wins at the meet and six for her four-year career.
"They are definitely our leaders in and out of the pool and stepping up on relays," Wilkinson said. "Julia had two phenomenal anchor legs in the 400 and 800 freeestyle relays. "
The Aggie women completed a sweep of the diving on Saturday. With an eight-point lead, Janie Potvin of Canada stuck her final dive for an Aggie record of 333.65 and a 31-point victory over Missouri's Christine Gailey.
Potvin immediately swam to the back got out and did an impromptu dance while her teammates raced over to congratulate her on her first Big 12 title.
A&M junior Jaele Patrick sewed up the diver of the meet honors on Friday with a first in the 3-meter, which gave her two golds. It was the Australian's first Big 12 meet.
"Jaele and Janie, and all the divers," Bultman said. "Every one of them was top 12 or so on every board they competed on."
To cap the night off, the Aggie women came back from over a body length down in the 400-meter freestyle relay to win by nearly a second over Texas.
Sarah Woods, who was third in the 100 free, made up the difference and then Wilkinson brought it home for Heiss and Elia Doerge.
"I was really excited about anchoring those relays," Wilkinson said. "It's always kind of stressful when you have to catch up, especially against someone as good as Kathleen Hersey, she's an Olympian and a great competitor, but that's the most fun when you have a huge challenge like that and you succeed."
The No. 1 Texas men dominated the last day of competition in running away with their 14th straight Big 12 title and 31st conference championship in a row.
Texas finished with 1,086 points and A&M was second at 826.
The Longhorns won every race and the platform diving.
Four UT swimmers set meet records, 200 and 400 IM, 200 breaststroke and 200 butterfly. Newcomer of the meet Austin Surhoff set the 200 IM mark and was second to Bryan Collins in the 400 IM.
A&M had some consolation in the final event of the evening, the 400 freestyle relay. The Aggies broke the school mark of 2:53.48 set last season by 45-hundredths of a second.
"That last relay solved so many problems for us, because that means we have our freestylers there [NCAAs], our medleys there," A&M men's coach Jay Holmes said. "Now we just have a few last-chance people we have to catch up with as far as individual events.
"All of our relays are going to make it and that's a very good thing for us to have relays representing Texas A&M at NCAAs."
Texas won the race in 2:52.77
Omar Enriquez continued his assault on the Aggie record book.
The freshman bettered his 1,650 freestyle mark with a swim of 15:08.45, taking 11.22 seconds off the standard he set earlier in the month. During the 1,650, Enriquez also bettered his 1,000 time.
In all, the A&M men broke seven school marks, including the 800 relay, which they shattered.
Bryan Snowden broke the 200 breaststroke mark and Balazs Makany se the 200 free standard with his opening leg in the 800 relay.
"Lot of things didn't get done but we swam really well in places," Holmes said. "We didn't necessarily close a big gap between us and Texas though. They are a great program."
Enriquez finished second to All-American Texas' Jackson Wilcox, making him the hard-luck swimmer of the meet. Enriquez set the school record in all three races he swam but was shutout of winning any gold.
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