In the midst of basketball fever, the Ags have another athletic team competing at the NCAA Championships this week. Our women's swimmers, led by all those Big 12 champion freshman, have a chance at A&M's first-ever top 10 finish in the sport. It will be interesting to see how it shakes it out.

best of luck to the ladies.


"I saw a tv show about Santa. The original elves were ugly and they went along to throw bad kids a beatin'."-Paulie "Walnuts"

I will definitely be watching the results. I think the ladies could do something special. Those freestyle relays are very fast - good swims in those and a few scoring individual races could push us in the top 10 - and maybe ahead of Texas!

The girls really have a chance to do something special this year and going forward. Great job and good luck ladies and Steve!

200 free relay makes championship final...got in thanks to a DQ by Cal...the DQ bug finally is working in our favor...

Let's go AGS!

Aljand makes 50 free final
Wilkinson makes consols in 200 IM
400 medley relay makes consols
Hansen barely misses in 500 free

Ags SHOULD have enough points to be top 25 in the final standings just after day one

The Ladies take 6th in the 200 Free Relay! Nice Job! 26 points and only 1 event into the meet!

I don't think Hansen is 100%. Her 500 free was off. Her 100 free split in the medley was slow. As a whole - the Ag women are not swimming best times.

I hope it is first day jitters.

If I have a complaint about Bultman it is that his swimmers have not been fast at NCAAs.

We're in 11th place after day one....

I don't think Hansen is off...she went 48.8 in the morning, one of the top splits in the entire field and well below her best open time for 100...they were way back by the time she hit the water at night...

Aljand was at her best in the 50 free (as was Sturdy on the relay tonight)...some are just responding differently...there are a lot of fish at the meet and there are likely all kinds of things they are thinking about in their first nationals experience...the Ags look to be in good shape so far

Hansen's best event (200 free) is today. She swims next to Kara Lynn Joyce, the no. 1 seed. Let's see how she does. The 200 medley relay was 1 sec slower than the Big 12s. They changed the order - Aljan on back instead of Sturdy, which was very fast. But Briskie was slower and Marshall on fly was 1 sec slower than Aljan's split at Big 12s. Good experiment but if they could have been .7 sec faster than their Big12 time they would have made finals.

The Ags best day should be Saturday - with two freestyle relays including our best - the 800 free.

Spicewood, take it easy on Steve and the girls - they are swimming very well right now over all.

Most of those girls were tapered for Conference just to ensure that they were firmly qualified for NC's (I know Aljand said she was not, but she was at least well-rested). It is very hard to hold a full taper for another couple weeks. Also, it's almost impossible to match the intensity and excitement of BIG XII's, where you have your entire team surrounding and supporting you. It is so intimate and unique - very difficult to replicate.

These (mostly) underclassmen are experiencing the biggest meet of their lives for the first time and handling it quite well! I think at the end of this weekend we will be very pleased with the outcome!

All in all, it is such an exciting time for Aggie Athletics!!!

[This message has been edited by Satine (edited 3/17/2006 11:08a).]

Maybe I am being too hard on Bultman. I have no complaints about the girls. I know they will swim at their best. Their performance is at the mercy of Bultman.

But I have been following the Ag swim teams for several years now. The Ag women rarely swim best times at NCAAs. They have had a problem with relay DQs. And so far - only Aljan's 50 in prelims was a best time. I don't think anyone else has swum a best time. Georgia has 5 girls in 200 free - and 4 of 5 swam best times today. Only KLJ did not - because she can afford to coast into finals. One of those girls was a freshmen. A freshmen from Arizona in the 200 swam a best time. So these teams seem to perform better at NCAAs. So I'm not convinced Bultman has figured this out. Plenty of girls at NCAAs are not swimming best times. Texas doesn't look too good except with their medley relays. Rigamonti was slow in the 500 yesterday.

I just want the Ags to finish top 10 and they need more to get there. They will not score many points today. Hansen's 200 is the best race for us today.

The Ags cling to 10th place after Day 2 - only 3 points behind Texas thanks to a DQ by the Longhorns in the 200 Medley Relay!!! Awesome job ladies!

Have faith in Steve and in this very young, very talented team. It takes years to build a perennial Top 10 team, and Steve has done a great job moving this team in the right direction. He is a great coach (I'm speaking from experience) and he will do everything he can to get these girls to NC's and perform well.

Heiss and Wilkinson both went best times on the 800 relay tonight as did Sturdy..it's just hit and miss...some are going best times...some aren't...generally they are pretty darn close to what they were doing at Big 12's..and (keep your fingers crossed) no relay DQ's yet

Yeah - many others aren't swimming super times either. A few are. Our 800 was off seeding time but we moved up one place in the race. Did you see 8 false starts in the 100? Was that one entire heat?

We cannot beat Texas. We have no finalists today except the 400 free relay (I assume). Codie was 17th in the 100 free. Briskie was way off on the 200 breast.

We will not hang on to 10th. Wisconsin and SMU have multiple finalists.

It looks like we will definitely drop out of the Top 10, how far is yet to be determined... Hopefully the girls will pull out a great 400 Free Relay and end the meet on a high note!

One thing I would point out is that the swimmers this year have done a great job with NO diving support. Usually in the past, we have had at least one diver in the game to help out with points. Sure there were a few girls that drastically fell off from Conference, but believe me this is not uncommon.

By the way, those were "Declared False Starts," meaning they declared before the event that they were not going to swim. They have to declare it to avoid being penalized for not showing up.

wow what a great relay to end the meet

11th is awesome for this young squad - a few more things going our way and we could have been close to florida for top 10

Great job overall. Our girls are young, and we should continue to improve.

Rx for next year:

- breastroker to replace Briskie, our best in history
- a great year for Sturdy as a senior

Sprint breaststroker is on the way...we just need to keep adding girls that can individually qualify for finals at NCAA's...the relays are quite good now...TOTALLY agree on Sturdy...hopefully she can continue to get better (as she did much of the last 2 months) and regain her freshman magic...they're going to need to find some divers too

LOB - you're right about individual qualifiers. You look at Georgia and Auburn and they put 2-4 swimmers in the points in many events. Texas beat us because they scored points in breastroke and backstroke where we scored none. I'd say we are set in freestyle for a while.