Feb. 27, 2003
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - The No. 24 Purdue men's swimming and diving team finished Day One at the 2003 Big Ten Men's Swimming and Diving Championships in eighth place with 66 points and sophomore Louis Paul is the Boilermakers' first Big Ten champion in two years.
Paul won the 200 individual medley on Thursday night with an NCAA automatic 'A'-cut and varsity record time of 1:46.07 after recording a time of 1:46.99 in the morning prelims session. In the morning session, he finished second to Minnesota's Dan Ketchum, who finished as the runner-up in the night session. Paul's varsity record breaks the previous mark held by Matt Brown since 1997.
Also swimming in the night session, the Boilermakers' 200 freestyle relay team of sophomore Ignatius Goh, freshman Andre Pereira and seniors Will Seelbach and Tad Sayce were disqualified. In the final event of the night, the 400 medley relay team of Paul, junior Tamas Bessenyei, Sayce and senior Jeremy Wright finished third with a Purdue varsity record and an NCAA 'B'-cut mark of 3:14.29. The mark breaks the previous record held by the team of Sutherland, Kovacs, Brown and Ullom since 1997.
In the consolation finals heat of the 500 freestyle, Wright swam to a 15th-place finish with a time of 4:29.54. His mark of 4:27.02 was his qualifying time during the morning session's prelims.
On the 1-meter diving board, sophomore Clayton Davis finished seventh with a score of 270.25, after recording a morning mark of 281.05. His total score of 551.30 is a varsity record, breaking the previous mark held by Eric Van Kannel since 1989.
In the morning session, other Boilermaker finishers in the 500 freestyle were Kyle Jackson (27th, 4:30.89), Ehud Dekter (34th, 4:33.24), Steuart Martens (37th, 4:35.65), Rion Epping (38th, 4:36.55), Mark Wolfred (43rd, 4:38.75), and Ian Lehman (53rd, 4:45.51).
Also swimming the 200 IM were Sayce (26th, 1:51.24), Tony Ten Haagen (31st, 1:52.56), Giordan Pogioli (35th, 1:53.29), Nick Cenci (36th, 1:53.35), Eric Prugh (41st, 1:54.62) and Blake Scholz (49th, 1:57.13).
In the 50 freestyle prelims, Purdue's finishers were Seelbach (20th, 20.85), Pereira (23rd, 20.88), Goh (25th, 20.89), John Arzner (52nd, 21.41), David Hughes (54th, 21.64) and Gui Rego (60th, 22.09).
The Boilermakers will return to the pool on Friday morning at Canham Natatorium in Ann Arbor. The morning's prelims session will begin at noon and the top-16 swims will begin at 7 p.m. Tomorrow's schedule includes the 200 medley relay, 400 IM, 100 butterfly, 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke, 100 backstroke, 3-meter diving, and the 800 free relay.
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