BATON ROUGE, La.- LSU men’s swimming and diving team lost to perennial SEC powerhouse Auburn (1-0) 218-82 at the LSU Natatorium on Friday.
“There were some me great individual performances today,” Head Swimming Coach Dave Geyer said. “When we recruit these kids we tell them that they have the opportunity to race against the best in the country. We had that opportunity to do that today.”
Last week’s SEC Male Diver of the Week, senior Matt Vieke, captured first place honors in the three-meter dive with a score of 371.48. His display was over 30 points higher than the program season total that he set last week at Florida.
“Matt was very consistent on both boards,” Head Diving Coach Doug Shaffer said. “Of the 12 dives that he did, I really don’t think that he had any one that would have cost him the event. That is what you want to see.”
Vieke also took second in the one-meter springboard with a score of 330.45, also a season high.
“We’re still working in some areas on developing our degree of difficulty,” Shaffer said. “Some of those dives we didn’t pull out and do here because we weren’t quite ready. We’re still working on those in our training and trying to get them going for later in the season.”
Sophomore Kevin Leong delivered his season and career highs in both the one-meter (311.25) and three-meter (352.28) en route to a third place finish in both events.
“I would say the Tiger divers as a team, really represented themselves very well,” Shaffer said. “We have four male divers and at any particular time, any of them can be on the podium. This is a confidence builder when you have a competition in your home pool. You’re comfortable with your pool, boards and spotting. You’ve got those experience levels under your belt, so you’re distracted by environment.”
Junior Nick Kunkel registered program season highs in both the 100 and 200 backstroke events. His 100 back time of 49.95 and 200 back time of 1:49.76 earned him silver in both competitions.
Sophomore Ricardo Alvarado Jiminez continued to impress in the 100 and 200 breaststroke events. He finished in second in the 100 breast with a mark of 55.97 and second in the 200 breast with a mark of 2:01.88, almost two seconds faster than the program season high.
Both the men’s and women’s team will return to competition on Friday, Nov. 4 to host Alabama at 1 p.m. (CT) at the LSU Natatorium. All admission to LSU home meets is free of charge.
Following the first three meets, the coaches are still tinkering with the relay lineup and will use the Alabama meet as another method of improving in time for postseason competition.
“We have got two weeks until our next meet and I told our guys as far as dual meet lineups that we will probably shift around depending on Alabama’s strengths,” Geyer said. “We’re definitely starting to get a better picture of what our SEC Championships team is going to look like.”
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