SMU Men Take Down TCU in Wednesday Dual Meet
A pair of Lone Star State men’s swimming and diving teams raced Wednesday afternoon in Dallas as Southern Methodist hosted Texas Christian. SMU came out on top comfortably by a 202-92 margin.
SMU’s Thad Austin, Trey Clervi, Tate Bacon and George Gonzalez opened the meet with a dominant performance in the 200 medley relay, touching in 1:26.04. The Mustangs actually picked up a 1-2-3 finish in the event after the top team from TCU was disqualified for a false start. SMU would then sweep the sprint events as well. Gonzalez won the 50 freestyle, going 19.92 to beat Bacon by one hundredth, while Mads Minichowski clocked 43.93 to top Gonzalez by two hundredths.
Francis Brennan topped the 200 freestyle in 1:34.29, followed by Jack Berube winning the 100 backstroke in 46.59 as the Mustangs picked up another 1-2-3 finish. Kristaps Mikelsons came out on top of another SMU sweep in the 100 breaststroke in 54.02. In diving, SMU’s Luke Sitz scored 427.20 points to win 3-meter, and he returned to win 1-meter with 359.40.
Andy Baklanov bested the field in the 200 back in 1:45.64 while Joe Umhofer led yet another dominant SMU effort in the 200 breast, his time of 1:59.25 making him the only swimmer under 2:00. Brennan won again in the 500 free by more than 8.5 seconds in 4:19.02, and Bacon dominated the 100 butterfly in 46.83. Baklanov won his second event of the afternoon, dominating the 400 IM by more than 12 seconds with a time of 3:51.04.
To conclude the meet, SMU’s team of Gonzalez, Eli Likins, Bacon and Minichowski topped the 200 free relay with a time of 1:18.69.
TCU got its first win in the 1000 free as Deacon Gutshall went head-to-head with SMU’s Aubrey Jaya and came out on top by 0.15. Jaya led for most of the final stretch of the race, but Gutshall produced a 25.46 split on the final 50 to win in 9:11.38. Grant Chapa then posted a strong performance in the 200 fly, going 1:48.35 in a TCU sweep.