BATON ROUGE — LSU’s highly-touted freshman swimmers Andrei Tuomola and Craig Hamilton enjoyed a stellar start to their collegiate careers with two wins apiece against Tennessee Friday in the LSU Natatorium, but the Volunteers emerged victorious, 166-134.
The LSU women will take on the Lady Volunteers Saturday at 11 a.m. (CT) in the LSU Natatorium. The Tigers (0-1, 0-1 SEC) will return to action in a week when they welcome the defending national champions of Auburn to Baton Rouge on Oct. 23.
“Coming in, we knew we would be going toe-to-toe with a quality SEC opponent,” LSU head coach Adam Schmitt said. “It certainly lived up to what we thought it would be. It was a boxing match. We won an event or two, and then, they came back and won an event, so it kind of went back and forth.
“Our guys hung tough. We had some really quality races for this early in the season. A few races could have gone either way, and we came out on the short end of a few of them, but who knows? The score could have been closer than it was. I give credit to Tennessee. They’re a solid and well-coached team, and they came in here on the road and got the victory.”
Tuomola, Finland’s national record-holder in 50-meter freestyle, claimed wins in both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle races and played a major role in relay competition. The freshman swam to victorious times of 20.62 and 45.16 seconds in the 50 and 100 free, respectively, and also spearheaded the team’s 400 free relay team to a first-place finish with a lead-off split of 45.14.
Hamilton swept the middle- and long-distance freestyle races with wins in the 500 and 1000 free. The Edinburgh, Scotland, native took the 1000 free in an impressive clocking of 9:23.19, the fifth-fastest time in program history, and reached the wall first in the 500 free in 4:34.15.
The Tigers opened the meet on a strong note, seizing victories in the first two races. The 200 medley relay foursome of James Meyers, Tuomola, Hannes Heyl and Sean LeNeave captured the victory with a time of 1:29.92. Hamilton followed with the win in the 1000 free.
LSU’s 200-butterfly combo of LeNeave and Martin Jungfleisch gave the Tigers a boost with a 1-2 finish in that race. LeNeave secured the win with a mark of 1:51.57, and Jungfleisch came in second with a 1:52.45 clocking.
In diving, sophomores Matt Vieke and Brian Gemberling each finished with runner-up honors in springboard competition. Vieke tallied 319.88 points in the three-meter to earn second, while Gemberling posted a score of 305.99 in the one-meter to come away with second-place in that event. Freshman Jesse Lyman recorded scores of 242.02 and 247.73 in the one- and three-meter, respectively.
The Tigers also received solid efforts from junior Luis Gonzalez, freshman Nick Kunkel and Heyl. Gonzalez placed second in the 1000 free with a mark of 9:29.69, and Kunkel finished second in the 200 backstroke (1:51.97). Heyl registered runner-up finishes in both the 100 fly (49.79) and 100 back (49.54).