AUSTIN, Texas — The LSU men’s swimming and diving team capped a successful season by finishing 18th with 58 points at the 2003 NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving Championships on Saturday night at the Joe Jamail Texas Swim Center in Austin.
The Tigers entered the final day of competition in 16th place and earned their eighth top-25 finish in the last nine seasons, and best finish since also placing 18th in 1999. It was LSU’s 18th-consecutive season at the NCAA Championships.
Auburn won the 2003 Championship by finishing with 609.5 points, joining the Auburn women’s team as national champions after the women won the title on March 22. Host Texas placed second with 413 points.
LSU only participated in two of seven events on Saturday, after competing in nine during the first two days of the meet. The Tigers’ team of Evan Martinec, Mike Jotautas, Francisco Paez, and Matthew Rucker placed 18th in the preliminaries of the day’s final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, with a time of 3:01.47. That same foursome broke school records in both the 200 and 400-yard medley relay on Thursday and Friday. The Tigers earned All-American distinction in the 200-medley relay on Friday by finishing eighth in the finals with a time of 1:28.22.
Cal won the 400-yard free relay with an NCAA-record time of 2:48.99, breaking the old time of 2:49.85 also set by California in 2000.
Paez, a sophomore making his NCAA Championships debut, placed 49th in the prelims of the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 44.98. Paez, Jotautas, and Rucker were all making their first-career appearance at the NCAA’s. Martinec competed for the third-straight season and earned All-America honors for the fifth time in his career in the 200 medley relay and 100-yard backstroke on Friday.
“This is really great that we finished in the top 20 at the NCAA’s, and even better that we had great performances from all five guys here this weekend,” said LSU head coach Jeff Cavana. “To finish 18th is wonderful and I am very happy with our overall performance here this weekend.”
Senior Kyle Van Arsdall, in his second career appearance at the NCAA’s, placed 12th in the preliminaries of the 10-meter platform diving competition with a score of 433.25. Auburn junior Ceasar Garcia won the event with a score of 575.80. The 12th-place finish was Van Arsdall’s best in NCAA action, having also competed as a sophomore in 2001 and finishing 23rd in the 3-meter competition.
USC senior Erik Vendt won the 1650-yard freestyle in a time of 14:29.85. Texas freshman Aaron Peirsol won the 200-yard backstroke with an NCAA-record time of 1:39.16, breaking the mark of 1:40.06 swam by Stanford’s Brian Retterer in 1995. Texas also broke the NCAA record in the 200-yard breaststroke as junior Brendan Hansen swam a time of 1:52.62 to win that event and break his time of 1:52.88 set last season.
Cal sophomore Duje Draganja won the 100-yard freestyle in a time of 42.02 and Alabama sophomore Stefan Gherghel won the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 1:42.35. LSU did not have any participants in any of those events.