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Auburn Men Finishes Tough Seventh At 2001 NCAA Championships

Mar 25, 2001

COLLEGE STATION, Texas - The Auburn University men's swimming and diving team completed the 2001 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships amidst controversy here Saturday night in seventh place with 236 points in front of the second largest three-day crowd in the meet's history at 10,606.

The Auburn team suffered an unfortunate obstacle in the morning prelims when the Tigers were penalized 97 points in the third day of competition due to the fact that sophomore Andy Haidinyak was late to his race in the 200 butterfly. Because of the missed race, Haidinyak was disqualified from all his remaining races in the meet and had all of his previous points taken away, including relay points.

Head coach David Marsh protested the ruling which called for a meeting between the meet committee. The rule could be changed or amended because of rule 4.2 in the 2001 NCAA Swimming and Diving Rule Book which states:

"This committee shall be responsible for the conduct of the meet, shall have authority to act in any situation not specifically covered by the rules of procedure and shall have discretionary power to set aside the application of a rule when there is apparent unfairness."

The committee decided to reject the petition to amend the rule during the meet, therefore, Auburn lost its 97 points from Haidinyak's events. "Obviously, this is terribly bitter sweet," Marsh said. "After our first day, we readjusted to a top three finish. To have the team fight back like that... I was proud of them. It just leaves a bitter taste to have it end this way.

"There was a bad rule, but it was in black and white. It just hasn't ever been applied in a meet. Now, because of this meet, the ruling will change, but unfortunately, I couldn't convince the meet committee to change it now."

Starting off the night action for the Tigers was junior Kevin Clements in the 1650-yard free, who finished in 14th place with a time of 15:06.55 for Auburn.

The Auburn seniors again stepped up for the Tigers with Greg Busse ending his Auburn career on a high note Saturday night placing third in the 100 free with a time of 42.65.

Senior Dave Denniston swam to not only a new school record and a second place finish with a time of 1:53.48 in the 200 breast, but also swam faster than the previous American, NCAA and US Open Record time of 1:53.77, but was out-touched by Brendan Hansen of Texas (1:53.11).

"It was a great swim for me," Denniston said. "Looking up to Mike Barrowman (former record holder) as a swimmer growing up makes this a tremendous honor. He was such a great swimmer and to beat his time makes going out like this in my senior year more meaningful."

To end the individual events on the night, senior Jeff Somensatto came up with a 13th place finish in the 200 fly to conclude his career at Auburn with a time of 1:44.83.

Freshman Caesar Garcia pulled out an impressive performance on the platform diving event placing eighth with a score of 515.40.

In the final event of the meet, Auburn's 400 free relay team of Richard Long, Greg Busse, Eric vanGoethem and Justin Caron placed seventh with a time of 2:55.25 which is the team's top time of the year.

"I am proud of this meet," Marsh said. "We finished seventh, but this is a top three team. Dave Denniston's 200 breast swim tonight was nothing short of amazing. To have him swim faster than someone like Barrowman, who is a long-standing record holder is just amazing.

"I was hoping that we would take swimming lessons away from this meet, but it ended up that we took away a few more life lessons than I had hoped." Rounding out the top ten were in No. 1 Texas (597.5), No. 2 Stanford (457.5), No. 3 Tennessee (330.5), No. 4 Southern California (299), No. 5 Florida (265), No. 6 Arizona (251), No. 7 Auburn (236), No. 8 California (191), No. 9 Minnesota (176) and No. 10 Michigan (161).

The NCAA Championships ends the collegiate season for Auburn, but most of the men's team will head to US Nationals in Austin, Texas, March 27 - April 2 for a chance to make the World Championship team, the World University Games team and the Goodwill Games team which will compete in China, Japan and Australia respectively.