A big group of Texas fans cheered as the Longhorn men surged to the team lead after the opening day of the NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships. It was such a good start that one of the Texas heroes thought it wasn't quite enough to say it was an orange and white day.
"It was golden, actually," said Drew Livingston, who won the 1-meter springboard event to add 20 points to the total piled up by the Longhorn swimmers. "That was exactly what we wanted to do."
The Longhorns scored 171 points in the first six events Thursday to start the three-day meet at the Texas A&M Student Rec Center Natatorium. Auburn was second at 141 points after winning both relays. Stanford (130), Florida (107) and California (103) round out the top five from a fast opening day that included a couple of NCAA records and one American record.
"It was probably the best day we've ever had, the first day of an NCAA meet," UT coach Eddie Reese said. "All it says is you better be good in the morning. To win this meet, you've got to swim six good sessions. We got two out of the way."
Host A&M was in 11th place with 33 points after Day 1. Diver Eric Sehn added to his school-record total of points in NCAA meets by finishing third on the 1-meter. A&M's 400-yard medley relay unit smashed the school mark in qualifying and missed making the championship final by 0.6 seconds, then was third in the consolation final for 11th place overall.
"We had some really good things happen," A&M coach Jay Holmes said. "The 400 medley relay this morning ... we were ecstatic with that swim. I'm so proud of that relay."
Another school record fell in the preliminaries when A&M junior Jason Bergstrom swam a time of 46.31 on the opening backstroke leg. The other members who helped set the school mark in 3:08.03 were sophomore Boris Loncaric, junior Nathan Lavery and sophomore Balazs Makany.
Texas was well on its way to a strong opening day going into the 1-meter diving. Sehn is a four-time Big 12 champion in the event and he scored the highest total of his career, but Livingston broke the NCAA meet record with 442.7 points.
"In the past two years or so I'm becoming more and more of a big-meet diver, but I've never dove a 1-meter competition like that," Livingston said. "I definitely surprised myself."
Sehn scored 420.7 points, eclipsing his previous best of 405 and coming close to the old NCAA meet mark of 421.05. The Aggie senior was in second place until the last dive of the competition, when Purdue's David Boudia slipped past him with a total of 420.8.
"That's sports," Sehn said. "Sometimes you do your best and it's not quite good enough. I'm not disappointed. I'm very happy with the way I dove. I thought I put together a great set of dives."
Texas and Auburn both put themselves in good position to contend for the NCAA championship they owned for eight consecutive years before Arizona won last year. The Longhorns combined Livingston's diving win with second-place finishes by Michael Klueh in the 500 freestyle and James Feigen 50 freestyle. Texas took fourth in both relays and set school records in every race Thursday night.
It was a nice finish to a day that began with Reese waking up around 3 a.m. and fighting to get back to sleep for a couple of hours before he came to the pool at 6 a.m. and swam 2,500 yards.
"Now I've got more reason to be uncomfortable, because we want to stay ahead," Reese said.
Auburn, which had a five-year NCAA title streak snapped last year, opened and closed the evening session with victories. The Tigers won the 200 freestyle relay and then broke the NCAA record in the 400 medley relay with a time of 3:01.39.
The Tigers held off California (3:01.69) to notch their fourth school record of the day and reward coach Brett Hawke, who fretted over the butterfly leg of the relay before making a last-minute decision to use Tyler McGill.
"We feel pretty good with where we are right now," Hawke said. "We had some amazing splits in the breaststroke and butterfly. I felt uneasy about it, but Tyler McGill is one of our captains. I told him it was time to step up, and he threw down a 43.9 [time] that was just ridiculous."
Other records that fell Thursday were in the 200 individual medley and the 50 freestyle. Florida senior Bradley Ally set a new collegiate mark in the 200 IM with a time of 1:40.49. Cal's Nathan Adrian broke the American standard in the 50 free with an 18.71.
A&M's 200 freestyle relay swam in the consolation final and finished 15th.
"I really think we're better than that, and our guys think we're better than that," Holmes said. "But we still got some points. We're clawing and scratching and fighting for every one we can find."
The meet will resume Friday with preliminaries scheduled to start at noon. The 7 p.m. finals will include eight events.
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