Jan. 18, 2003
EAST LANSING, Mich. - The 15th-ranked Purdue men's swimming and diving team fell on Saturday to the Michigan State Spartans in East Lansing, 131-112. With the loss, their second in two days, the Boilermakers fall to 7-2 on the year, while the Spartans improve to 4-7 on the year.
"Today we're very disappointed," said Purdue head men's swimming coach Dan Ross. "But, the good thing about this job is that I get to see how all the different individuals react to the situation and see what they take out of it. We have a lot of very upset guys right now, but we told them when we came in here that it would be a very tough place to compete and win. Unfortunately, I think some of them realized that a little too late.
"I thought our big men competed well today with Tamas (Bessenyei) winning the 100 breaststroke with a 54.8 and Louis (Paul) came up huge for us in the 100 back with a 50.0. Our distance guys went 1-2-3 in the 1,000 and that was fantastic. We truly battled the second half of the meet, but in the Big Ten, you can't dig yourselves a hole that big to get out of because you're already too deep."
In the first race of the day, the 200 medley relay, the Boilermakers were able to grab both the second and third-place spots, as they followed that up with the 1-2-3 punch in the 1,000 freestyle from sophomores Rion Epping and Steuart Martens and junior Kyle Jackson.
Senior Jeremy Wright came in second in the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:41.48, while Ignatius Goh also finished second in the 50 free in 21.74.
Sophomore Giordan Pogioli came in second in the 400 individual medley, followed by junior Tony Ten Haage and junior Nick Cenci in third and fourth.
With a time of 49.47, senior Tad Sayce came in first in the 100 butterfly, as Bessenyei and Scholz took third and fourth.
Jackson came in second in the 100 freestyle with a time of 47.17 and sophomores Eric Prugh and John Arzner finished third and fourth.
Paul and sophomore David Hughes came up very big for Purdue with a 1-2 finish in the 100 backstroke, as Paul set a new McCaffree Pool record with a time of 50.07. Hughes finished in 51.46.
Epping, Wright and senior Ehud Dekter finished second, third and fourth, respectively, in the 500 freestyle, followed by a Bessenyei win in the 100 breaststroke. Bessenyei also tallied a McCaffree Pool record with a time of 54.88. Pogioli came in third in 57.99.
The final swimming event of the day was the 200 freestyle relay. Paul, Goh, Sayce and senior Will Seelbach finished second with a time of 1:24.77.
On the diving board, freshman Bob Hennessy came in fourth with a score of 234.07, while junior David Hanisch finished fifth with 213.97 points.
The men of the Old Gold and Black will return to the pool on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, at the annual Quad Meet in Minneapolis, Minn. There, they will compete against Minnesota and Wisconsin.
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