Feb. 01, 2019
DALLAS --- The No. 10 Texas A&M men's swimming and diving team downed the SMU Mustangs, 120-83, in dual meet action on Friday evening in the Aggies' final tune-up before the Southeastern Conference Championships.
With the victory, the Aggies finished the regular season with a 5-3 dual meet record. The Aggies return to action in a couple of weeks at the SEC Championships, which will be contested Feb. 19-23 at the University of Georgia.
The Aggies won eight of 11 races, including sweeps of at least the top two spots in seven races. Texas A&M has now won seven straight against the Mustangs and the Senior Class of 2019 became the sixth senior class to finish with a 4-0 record against SMU.
"It was a good day of racing," said Aggie head coach Jay Holmes. "We needed one last chance to work on some things and going against SMU gave us that chance. I'm happy with the way we competed."
Holmes pointed to the 200-yard freestyle victory by sophomore transfer Mark Theall as the highlight of the night. Theall trailed SMU's Carson Klein by nearly a second at the 150-yard mark, but he grabbed the win with a swift 24.70 final 50 yards.
"The swim of the meet was Mark Theall's 200 free," Holmes said. "It wasn't necessarily the time, which was good, but it was the way he did it. He was far behind three-fourths of the way and really came home well on the last 50."
Seven different Aggies tallied individual victories: Felipe Rizzo in the 500 freestyle (9:22.78), Theall in the 200 free (1:38.28), Adam Koster in the 50 free (20.07), Ben Walker in the 200 IM (1:49.40), Mateo Gonzalez in the 200 butterfly (1:49.67), Shaine Casas in the 100 free (45.25) and Mark Schnippenkoetter in the 500 free (4:32.63).
The Aggies closed out the night with a 1-2 finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Grabbing the top spot was the foursome of Mike Thibert, Koster, Theall and Casas in a time of 2:58.85.