Auburn returned to its place atop men's swimming and lifted its cancer-stricken coach to the top of the list for all-time national titles by winning the NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships on Saturday night at the Texas A&M Student Rec Center Natatorium.
The Tigers captured their eighth NCAA championship and sixth in the last seven years, reclaiming the title that went to Arizona last season. Auburn athletes and coaches dedicated the championship to head coach Richard Quick, who was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor in December.
It is the 13th NCAA team championship for Quick, who won the first 12 as women's coach at Texas and Stanford.
"On the back of our T-shirts it read 'Time To Represent Richard Quick,'" said senior Matt Targett, who swam on all four winning relay teams. "That's what we tried to do. Richard has been an inspiration to all of us, and I think we tried to give back to him the best way we know how."
Auburn entered the final day of the NCAA meet six points behind Texas. The Tigers took the lead for good midway through the final session and built an insurmountable lead by outscoring Texas 36-0 in the 200-yard butterfly with two events remaining.
UT diver Drew Livingston finished second in the next-to-last event, but the only way the Longhorns could have moved ahead of Auburn would have been for the Tigers to be disqualified in the 400 freestyle relay finals. Despite being under orders to be extra-careful with their takeoffs, the Tigers won the relay to finish in style with 526 points. UT was second in the relay and in the meet, scoring 487 points.
"Right before we got to this meet, Richard was very sick," Auburn co-head coach Brett Hawke said. "It was time to show him what we're made of. [Quick's condition is] a rapid spiral, but he knows we won tonight, and it put a smile on his face."
Quick broke a tie with David Marsh for the most NCAA team swimming titles.
Although the Tigers didn't pass Texas in the standings until Saturday night, Auburn set the stage for winning the title with a strong performance in the afternoon preliminaries. The Tigers qualified eight entrants for the championship finals and five more for the consolation finals, which also produce points. The Horns had four in the championship round and four in the consolation round.
Auburn advanced two swimmers into the championship final of the 100 freestyle and the 200 butterfly.
"Auburn in the past few years has become a master of blowing everybody's doors off on the morning of the third day," UT coach Eddie Reese said. "They were incredible this morning. If they had been only pretty good, I would have hated it. They were so good, I just had to appreciate it. They knew the meet was on the line, and they did things that they weren't supposed to do."
The host team from Texas A&M qualified only one entry for the Saturday evening session, making the consolation final in the 400 freestyle relay. The Aggies finished 13th in that event and wound up 12th in the final team standings with 104 points.
Georgia and Minnesota moved past the Aggies on the final day, preventing A&M from its first Top 10 finish since 1999.
"One of these days we're going to be in the Top 10," A&M coach Jay Holmes said. "I was just hoping it would be this year. We knew that today we'd be hanging on for dear life, because Georgia had a great day."
Aggie diver Eric Sehn finished his career as A&M's biggest NCAA meet points producer when he was ninth in the platform diving, coming up one spot shy of making the finals.
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Posted by: On: 3/29/2009
Comment Title:
What a ridiculous comment and untrue on Auburn fans. I don't know what your problem is, but I hope you get a life.
Posted by: On: 3/29/2009
Comment Title:
The aggies are in the top ten in class though. I was at the event and auburn fans are the worst bunch of classless clowns I've ever seen. They remind me of how animals would act if they were let out of their cages.
