The 2010 Men’s NCAA Division I Swimming & Diving Championships will go down in history as the meet that took an extra day to get started and never wanted to end. A tremendous comeback combined with a freakish finish capped a day that saw Texas turn an eighteen point deficit into a 30.5 point championship.The NCAA team title is the Longhorns’ first since 2002 and the runner-up finish is the best Cal has enjoyed since 1986 when Olympian Matt Biondi was on the team. The win wasn’t easy, nor was it conventional with several unusual disqualifications marring the day.
California was absolutely dominant throughout the first two days of competition. Time and time again the Golden Bears rose to the occasion while also taking advantage of a field savaged by the norovirus. The Bears’ luck turned anything but Golden late Saturday night when Cal finished a disappointing tenth in the 800 Free Relay. Combined with a Longhorn win, the momentum began to shift towards Texas. “For every single one of us the most important day of our swimming career is tomorrow,” Tweeted Austin Surhoff. “For me its the most important day of my life.”
Dave Walters and Ricky Berens’ Olympic experience notwithstanding, the Longhorns did indeed swim as if it was the biggest day of their lives, and that urgency was evident the first four times Texas hit the water. In each instance it was a Longhorn who touched ahead of the field – in many cases well ahead of the field. That type of opportunistic swimming gave the Longhorns a dozen individual swims by nightfall – five of which were in the championship heats.
The energy surrounding the Texas bleachers was a far cry from a year ago when the Longhorns were battered by a ferocious Auburn attack. This time around it was Texas that was loose, having fun and getting behind each swim. For California, with each succeeding DQ or time addition, the day was turning painfully long. By the time the morning session was completed, the Golden Bears had tallied only seven nighttime qualifiers – four up and three down.
The night began with Stanford’s Chad LaTourette capturing the 1650 Freestyle. “I felt pretty good. My race wasn’t as fast as I would have liked,” explained LaTourette, “but it feels great to be an NCAA champion. I was worried after the first 500, but I felt ok and I was able to progress from there and bring it home.”
The win was only the second for Stanford, whose hopes for a title were decimated by the norovirus. The Cardinal got stronger with each succeeding day, and actually outscored the rest of the field on the day to work their way towards a 4th place trophy.
Another team that enjoyed a strong final day was Arizona, and that first evident when Cory Chitwood won the 200 Backstroke. Chitwood roared past 2009 champion Tyler Clary to take the win n 1:39.29). Chitwood had finished second in the event as a freshman, but had even more to prove this year as he dedicated the race to a previous coach. “’I’ve had this written on my cap all week: ‘Andy Rose this is for you.’” Explained Chitwood. “This race was for my youth coach who passed away a couple of months ago.”
Chitwood’s win was the first of two for the Wildcats. The second came a couple of events later when Clark Burckle captured the 200 breaststroke. Burckle was one of the swimmers most affected by the norovirus, but the Florida transfer found a way to capture his first NCAA title. “I just looked over and saw I was with someone. I like to race,” he explained, “so I told myself ‘I didn’t come all this way not to try to win.’ I’m just super happy right now.” Burckle and Texas’ Scott Spann turned together at the 150, but Burckle pulled ahead of the Texan for the win.
What was missing from the 200 breaststroke were the slew of Cal breaststrokers from the day before. While Damir Dugonjic was well-known as a 100 specialist, Cal took a big hit when pre-race favorite Sean Mahoney was disqualified. The DQ led to a heated exchange between coaches and officials, but in the end the Bears left the event somewhat empty handed.
Nathan Adrian gave Cal a lift in the 100 freestyle. Interestingly, it was just the Junior’s first title of the meet, having previously been upset by local favorite Josh Schneider in the 100 freestyle. Adrian provided a model of how to swim the 100 freestyle as he led the race from wire-to-wire.
Another star swimmer who had gone the meet without a title was Florida’s Shaune Fraser. Fraser had finished second twice and was eyeing a win in his third event the 200-butterfly. By the end of the race it appeared that Fraser had earned the bridesmaid’s hat trick, until meet director Sam Kendrick announced that event winner Mark Dylla of Georgia had been disqualified for a one-handed touch on his first turn. As the crowd went silent, several individual went ballistic wondering how such a call could have been made. Seemingly everyone wanted to find a way to give the Georgia senior the title, even Florida coach Gregg Troy, for whom the outcome meant an individual title for his swimmer and a top-four trophy for his team.
"You have to feel bad for (Mark) Dylla. He won the race and he's a great competitor, we swim each other in the SEC each season,” explained Troy.
“What happened to Mark was unfortunate,” Bauerle said. “He swam so great in that race, but I was even more proud of how he was afterward. He’s a quality kid who comes from a great family, and I was so proud of how he reacted to what happened.”
“I am certainly disappointed, but I have to abide by the judge’s decision,” Dylla said. “I have gotten several text messages and I’ve had several swimmers from our team and other teams come over to pat me on the back. I appreciate all of their support. That means the world to me. I will work my tail off to get back here next season and give it another shot.”
Dylla was the NCAA runner-up in 2008 and 2009 and entered this year’s NCAAs with the nation’s fastest time in the 200 butterfly.
Eddie Reese
- On winning his 10th NCAA championship: I never really count numbers. It’s always a 15 to 18 to 19-man effort that does it. To get everybody headed in the right direction in early September, that takes trust on their side and takes trust on the coaching staff’s side. Swimmers and divers are such good kids that it’s hard to not enjoy it and not have success, win or lose. Cal can be upset about not winning, but they had the meet of their lives. I’m not sure I want to see them have this kind of meet ever again (laughs). We never set a goal to win (before the season). We set a goal to get better and try to figure out what it takes to get better. But, I’m a bit of a purist and I would love to see them work real hard and go real fast, and then whatever the team score comes out , that’s great. It really helps to win because it doesn’t happen very often.
- On the key factor in winning the meet: The key to the meet was the morning of the second day because Cal had the best second-day morning (at an NCAA Championship) I have ever seen in this sport. We stayed fairly close to them, and if we hadn’t stayed close to them, then it would have been totally over. We would have had no chance. They could have given Cal the trophy that night. There was no way to make up a whole lot on Cal tonight. The third day is always a tough day.
- On rallying to win on the meet’s final day: This was one of our best final days, ever. The only thing special about it was the people that were doing the swims. The last day is a fatigue day. If you looked at the 400 freestyle relays in the prelims, California went with their best four guys just to not take a chance. We went with our best four guys.
- On whether this NCAA title is more special than others: It’s always about people and effort for me. If you’re going to win an NCAA championship, you’ve got to have real good people who make great efforts on days they don’t want to, when they’re not feeling well. All that kind of stuff goes into it. I don’t remember the others (national championships), but I can tell you what their times were when they came to school and what they were when they graduated. Those are the important things. It’s what they give.
Ricky Berens
- On winning the national championship: It’s what every college athlete dreams of, to win the NCAA championship. That’s what you train for every single day. We worked so hard every single day for the last four years, and we knew were not going to come up short. To go out like this is amazing. All of the seniors…we’re all such a close-knit group, a bunch of brothers. It’s just something very special we talked about…winning the NCAA championship. We often watched past NCAA Championships and saw all the Texas guys from 2001 and 2002, when they won NCAA titles. We wanted to feel what they felt when they jumped in the pool together after winning the national championship. We wanted it.
- On Texas swinging the momentum back in its favor during prelims: The whole NCAA meet is a roller coaster. Every single team goes up and down the whole meet. Cal won those relays early on, and they gained momentum the whole second day. Then, we won the 800 freestyle relay and took away the momentum. We went into the last day really pumped. We had a meeting today before prelims. We discussed how we were tired of getting second place and that we were going to get it done right now in the prelims.
California's Dave Durden:
- “We were so happy to spend another day doing what we love to do,” said Durden, who was honored by the College Swimming Coaches Association of America. “We (the coaching staff) couldn’t be happier with how the guys represented the program, their families and the University of California.”
- “We’re really proud of the way the guys finished the meet this weekend.” We raced tough the whole way through to the very last relay. We didn’t have as many bodies this year, but to come out and accumulate the most points ever for a Florida team in an NCAA meet is really an accomplishment. Our seniors, Shaune Fraser, Roberto Gomez, Omar Pinzon and Roland Rudolf, did absolutely outstanding. Conor was very deserving of National Men’s Swimmer of the Year, but Shaune also had a fantastic meet, finishing second in two races and first in the other, while all were major contributors in each of our relays. Our seniors have contributed four great years here at Florida, and even though we were a little short tonight, our entire coaching staff is very happy with the way they performed the whole way through.”