FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The fifth day of competition at the 2002 Southeastern Conference Swimming and Diving Championships wrapped up on Friday evening at the Arkansas Natatorium in Fayetteville.
LSU received several solid individual performances on Friday. Evan Martinec placed fourth in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 48.14. Florida’s Chris Kellam won the event with a pool-record time of 47.87. Lindsay Staak finished 11th in the consolation final of the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 56.85. Mike Jotautas finished 13th in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 48.94. Lady Tiger All-American Mandy Leach placed second in the 100-fly, swimming the event in a time of 53.84. Demerae Christianson won the event with a time of 53.20, setting a new SEC record. Laura Jo Leininger placed ninth in the consolation final with a time of 54.87.
Francisco Paez finished 11th in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:38.87. No LSU athlete made the finals of the 200 free. Sophomore Stephanie Smith placed 24th in the prelims with a time of 1:53.22. Steve Gluck finished 13th in the consolation final of the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 55.61. LSU failed to make the women’s finals of the 100-yard breaststroke competition. Margot Gathings finished 18th in the prelims of the 400-yard individual medley. Myles Jaynes finished 23th in the preliminaries of the 400-yard individual medley with a score of 4:08.64 but failed to make the finals.
LSU’s team of Staak, Lauren Harvey, Leach and Leininger finished fifth in the 400-yard medley relay with a time of 3:45.93. The LSU men finished sixth in the 400 medley relay with a time of 3:17.29. Auburn won both 400 medley relay events.
The LSU men are currently in eighth place overall with a score of 138.0, and the women are in fifth with a score of 260.0. Georgia leads in the women’s standings and Auburn is ahead on the men’s side. The women are only 7.5 points behind Auburn for fourth place.
The Championships end on Saturday with preliminaries beginning at 10:30 a.m. and finals at 6:30 p.m.
In related news, the 2002 SEC Academic Honor Roll was announced on Friday by SEC Commissioner Roy Kramer. 21 LSU athletes were named to the Honor Roll, nine women and 12 men. Seven of the nine women named to the list this season were repeats from last season. 161 athletes were named to the Honor Roll this season. Arkansas has 16 members on the women’s side and Florida had 15 student-athletes to lead the league.