On the third day of the Men's NCAA Division I Championships, Auburn University left little as to who the best team was as they tallied 491 points to Stanford's 414. The best performances of the night, however, went to Cal-Berkeley which set new US Open and NCAA Championship records in the 100 freestyle and 400 free relay en route to their 4th place finish with 381 points. Arizona (388) and Florida (284) filled in the top five.

Following a day that saw Stanford cut their lead to 38 points, the Tigers did what they needed to do in the morning. Stanford suffered a frustrating day that saw Tobias Orwol, Pete Carothers, and Mark Stephens just miss making it out of prelims and also witnessed Andy Grant, Kyle Ransom and Matt Crowe suffer disqualifications.

“Every year the goal is to win another national championship. It feels great to go out as a captain and to lead my team to a national championship and bring it home to Auburn,” AU captain BJ Jones said. “I came to school here to win a national championship and thank God I have been able to win three.”

“We hoped we would (win for the third time in row). We knew we had a strong team coming back but we also knew that we would have to perform well at the event. As the year played out, California came on and Stanford had an amazing meet, so the competition really raised-up during the year,” AU Coach David Marsh said. “We had to absolutely be at our best here and that’s what we were. Our goal was to improve times and we improved times at about a seventy-percent rate, and most times that will get you a championship.”

“I think as a team we committed to a goal and it is a new goal every year. This senior class will never be with us again and it was a special senior class, as was each of the last three,” Marsh said of his seniors. “Matt Bricker winning the 10-meter brought tears to my eyes. He has been a special young man, and I don’t even coach him every day. That was the kind of year we had as a program.”

Showing how strong the depth is on Auburn squad, the two individual NCAA titles was the fewest individual titles in a championship season for the Tigers, with the previous low being three in 2003. The Tigers also had no finalists in an event - the 100 breaststroke - for the first time in three years.

Coach-of-the-year honors went to Northwestern's Bob Groseth who finished 8th and Frank Busch of Arizona.

“This is the best team I have ever coached, the guys swam their hearts out,” said Busch. “I am overwhelmed at the outcome of this meet, what a great end to a great year. I am so proud of the team and the staff.”

The meet began with Olympic 1500m freestyle silver medallist Larsen Jensen (USC) overcoming his disappointing 500 from Thursday to win his first career NCAA title.

"I was really upset after my 500 a couple of days ago. I just worked on it during practice and I came in here with something to prove I guess. I didn’t want to lose it so I took the lead from the start and didn’t pay attention to anyone else in the heat and swam my own race.

Jensen paid for the aggressiveness, but had built a big enough lead to withstand hard finishes from defending champion Peter Vanderkaay of Michigan and Georgia's Robert Margalis, "I faded a little bit at the end which isn’t really like me because.”

Ryan Lochte also avenged an earlier loss (100 back) with a vengance. The Gator set the NCAA Championship record en route to the 200 backstroke title. Lochte narrowly missed his own NCAA and US Open record as he put nearly three seconds on his nearest competititor. Auburn's Doug VanWie edged Michigan's Chris DeJong in the final 5 yards to finish second.

After the race, Lochte sloughed off questions about the record, "If I did set a record that’s great, but I don’t really think that was on my mind at that point. I just wanted to go out there and race my best, and do whatever I could to help my team and have fun.”

One person who didn't flinch at the notion of records was Cal's Duje Draganja as he went on to set his own NCAA and US Open record in the 100 freestyle.

“Yeah I was aiming for all of the records, in all of my swims I did pretty well and I was pretty close, especially in the 50 Free and Fred (Bousquet ) was amazing so that one escaped me. I knew this was my last chance and I went out there and grabbed it by the horns and came out with a victory and a record.”

Draganja was out in a blistering 19.74 at the 50 fully 4/10 ahead of Fred Bousquet (Auburn) and Lyndon Ferns (Arizona) who finished second and third respectively.

Draganja credited that first 50 for the win and was expecting more, "I wanted to swim it faster. I just wanted to get out ahead and whatever happens at the end happens. Luckily I came out with a victory.”

In the 200 breaststroke, Vladislav Polyakov (Alabama), Mikhail Alexandrov (Northwestern) and Gary Marshall (Stanford) waged a fierce battle for the title. In the early running it was Alexandrov who took control of the race. By the 100, however both Polyakov and Marshall edged ahead with Marshall beginning to fade at the 150. Alexandrov worked himself back into the race, but couldn't overcome Polyakov. US Olympian Scott Usher got Wyoming on the scoreboard with his 4th place finish.

“It feels really good to be a national champion, I was here to swim for my team and that is what is most important to me. I am definitely glad that I was able to represent our school well and bring home a championship.”

“It was a really close race, Mike (Alexandrov) was right on my heels the whole race. I knew I just had to go out there and swim my best and the results would be positive. Luckily for me I came away with a victory and a pool record.”

“Vlad had a good controlled race this morning in prelims and he just went after it tonight,” said Alabama coach Eric McIlquham . “He was second at the 50 and 100 and tied for first at the 150 and he just brought it home. He dove hard for the wall and came away with the win.

Davis Tarwater gave Michigan its second win of the meet, winning the 200 fly. Tarwater got off to a slow start and sat seventh overall with an opening split of 23.25. Stanford's Jayme Cramer, swimming his final collegiate race was the early leader, splitting a 22.65. Daniel Cruz of Kentucky and Rainer Kendrick moved out front. With a final split of 27.07, Tarwater took over the lead with just 30 yards left and pulled away from Kendrick, Cruz, and a rapidly-fading Cramer to win his first NCAA individual championship.

Following the race, Tarwater was asked about the pool, and it's newly-minted fly record, “I guess now this is my favorite pool, because I have gotten an NCAA Championship out of it. This pool swims really fast, but it’s not the pool that makes the difference it is the competition and the guys around you that make it fast, and that atmosphere was really great tonight.”

Auburn divers Matthew Bricker and Steve Segerlin swept the platform for the second-consecuitve year.

The night finished with Cal-Berkeley obliterating the field in the 400 freestyle relay. Draganja followed-up his 100 free championship with a lead-off 41.71. From there the Bears continued to pull away, reeling off splits of 41.87 (Milorad Cavic), 42.32 (Jonas Tilly) and 41.80 (Rolandas Gimbutis) to establish a new NCAA and US Open record of 2:47.70. Auburn's team of Bousquet, Ryan Wochomurka, George Bovell and BJ Jones held off Arizona for second, over 2.6 seconds behind Berkeley.

Said Bear anchor Gimbutis, “It was an amazing race and I really felt responsible race being the last person to swim, but I was ready to swim fast and do the best I could for our team. It is a team race and I wasn’t the only one out there, but everyone was ready for the race and we got the record.”