Session II Final(s) Thoughts:
- While Arizona leads the championship, I got a sense that the meet will not be over until the last 400 free relay touches the wall.
- This facility is humungous, and while there is a good group of fans here showing great passion for a great meet it still feels cavernous with so many empty seats and could seemingly be louder.
- Auburn's Cesar Cielo won his eighth NCAA title which ranks second on the all-time Auburn list. Who is first you may ask? Brett Hawke (now Auburn's sprint coach) currently holds the school mark with nine NCAA titles during his swimming career.
- Relay starts have been remarkably slow. For being the best in the world, you wouldn't expect relay take-off's in the mid-20's. Of course, the penalty is harsh and margin slim so coaches are being cautious.
- Iron-man award goes to Cincy's Josh Schneider. After prelims, and two swim-off's, the Bearcat claws his way to 3th. He probably feels lucky he's not an IM'er.
- Arizona and Cal had the biggest morning, but only Arizona capitalized. When you compare the points at the end of the night vs. where they'dhave scored in prelims, Auburn makes the biggest improvement, going up 8 points over their pre-score. Zona, Texas and Indiana all went up four, and all were at the expense of Cal which scored fifteen points fewer than their prelim times would have predicted.
200 Free Relay Winner Quotes:
Auburn Senior Luke Weniger
On whether Arizona’s prelim performance added any more fire to make a statement with relay win:
We pretty much focused [on ourselves]. We knew there was going to be a big crowd and everything so we decided we needed to focus on ourselves and continue to do what we needed to do.
On how special it is to win as a senior:
Well it actually makes it great. Seeing the whole team get fired up and seeing the fans start to get fired up, and the meet really starts gets into swing. Its something we have been waiting for all year. You know it’s the last time this is going to come around for me and its incredible to see everybody getting excited.
500 Free Champion Sebastian Rouault
On his race strategy of going for it at the 250/300 yard mark:
My strategy was to come back faster. We had a good field and everything and I was able to stay focused and I just went for it.
200 IM Champion Darian Townsend
On winning the event:
I started swimming the IM when I got to Arizona and I moved away from the 50 free. Its taken me a while to train for more distance events, but now its paid off. It was nice to train with Ryan Loche for the few years that he won [the 200 IM] and then train with Adam Ritter the year that he won it and so now it was my turn.
50 Free Champion Cesar Cielo
On difference in performance from prelims to finals:
This morning I didn’t try too hard, some people asked me if I held back, and I did a little bit at the end. It gave me a lot of confidence when I touched the wall and saw 18 with out going all out. So when I came into tonight I knew that I was going to improve my time, but I didn’t know I was going to improve that much.
On what contributed to his improvement:
I’ve been trying to change the way I’m thinking. Im not trying to get my mind focused on a certain time, right now Im just trying to get a perfect race and see what happens. Last year I was like ‘I wanna go 18.6’ and I went 18.6. So this year I was like Im not going to be any goal times Im going to just do the perfect race.
On what he was thinking about before his race:
Well its hard to tell. My mind is on another planet behind the blocks. I don’t even know what Im doing there. Its hard to tell just trying not to think too much, I try to be perfect in practice, perfect stroke, perfect turn, and so I feel confident behind the block.