The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - January 11, 1999 5B Men's swim team drops pair of duals By Jason Emeott Daily Sports Writer The last few days have been a cruel .return to reality for the Michigan men's swim team. One day, you're swimming *tside in beautiful Honolulu, Hawai'i, where heading back to school is a distant thought..The next day, you're knee-deep in snow worrying about buying books for the winter semester. A pair of pretty good California swim teams didn't help out with the transition back to reality, either. On Friday, the No. 8 Wolverines lost to No. 7 California, and then took anoth- er defeat on Saturday to No. 4 USC in Los Angeles. In both meets, the Alverines lost by an identical score of 138-106. "Both teams figured out our weakness in the relays and hurt us there," said Michigan coach Jon Urbanchek. "We were a little tired from training camp." Against California, Michigan got a few outstanding swims to keep them in the meet. Senior co-captain Tom Malchow won the 200-yard freestyle d 200-yard butterfly while sophomore ris Thompson also won two events. Michigan took first and second place in the 1000- and 500-yard free with Thompson winning them both. Junior Mike McWha placed second in the 1000 while freshman Tim Siciliano was the runner-up in the 500. The story of the meet, though, was the performance of the Michigan divers. Senior Brett Wilmot, junior Josh Trexler, and sophomore Carlos Castillo swept first, second, and third in the three-meter springboard. Wilmot's score of 314.02 qualified him for the NCAA Zone Diving Meet. "We're lucky the divers performed extremely well. They saved our face" Urbanchek said. In the USC meet, the bright spot of the day was the one-two finish in the 200-yard breaststroke from sopho- more Scott Werner and freshman Jeff Hopwood. Michigan also got its nearly automatic victories in the 200 fly and the 1000 free from Malchow and Thompson. "We were swimming against the top teams in the country. It's good for us because that's the type of competi- tion we're going to see down the road at NCAAs," said Urbanchek. "The team is on target. Our big challenges are over, swimming in the Big Ten will be a little easier than in California," said Urbanchek. "Our main focus right now is to regain the Big Ten crown from Minnesota in five weeks." For now, it's back to reality for Urbanchek and his team. "The weather was gorgeous-80 degrees everyday, clear, blue skies. Now I just got done shoveling my car out of the snow" Urbanchek said. Swimming stilh making waves, qualifying times By Jon Zemke Daily Sports Writer The Michigan's men's swimming and diving team as a reputation for being a strong team nationally as fatas producing swimmers and divers. Tom Dolan and Eric Namesnik are two of the rhbst prominent names to arise from the program. Both were heavily favored in the 400 individual medley during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Dolan beat out Namesnik by less than a second to win the gold in one of NBC's nationally featured races. Even after their graduations, the Michigan swim team still puts out NCAA qualifying and consideration times with a incredible consistency. Senior Tom Malchow has scored NCAA consideration times in the 200 and 500 freestyle and the 200 butterly. Chris Thompson, a sophomore, has qualified for the NCAAs in the 1650 free and earned a consideration time in the 500 free. In the breaststroke, sophomore Scott Werner nailed down two more consideration times in the 100 and 200. Freshman Jason Mallory has also achieved consideta- tion for the NCAAs in the 500 free and the 400°iM respectively. All of these times were scored in the fall half of.the season. The diving team doesn't lack for success either, quali- fying two divers, senior Brett Wilmot and junior Josh Trexler, for both the one and three-meter diving compe- tition. FILE PHOTO The Michigan men's swim team returned from training in Hawai'i and was greeted coldly - both by the weather and by dual meet hosts USC and California. ,Gymnasts flip two ranked teams By Nita Srivastava Daily Sports Writer - The seventh-ranked Michigan women's gymnastics team is beginning he new year on the right foot with an upset over No. 2 Florida and No. 25 Ilinois this weekend, despite the Gators' home advantage at the Stephen C. 'Connell Center. , This weekend's competition was the third straight victory for the Wolverines oyer Florida. Michigan finished with a score of 193.300, 3.025 points in front of Florida and 4.550 points ahead of Illinois. Such a significant point differ- ence should prove to be a confidence builder for the Wolverines in their upcoming meets. "It feels really good to start off the sson this way," senior Lisa Simes said. O is definitely a confidence builder because it helps us to see how all of our hard work pays off, and this will keep us motivated through our other meets." The Wolverines were led by junior Sarah Cain, who finished with a tie for second place in the all-around competi- tion (38.500), the vault (9.825) and the *balance beam (9.675), as well as a tie for first place in the floor exercise (9.850). "Sarah, everyone else and I were just happy that we could contribute to the overall team score - it's not really an individual thing," Simes said. Other top Michigan finishers in the all-around competition included Simes and sophomore Bridget Knaeble, scor- ing 38.500 and 38.325, respectively. Michigan's best event in the meet was the vault, which was supported by the consistently higher scores on the apparatus. The Wolverines tallied a team score of 48.775. The balance beam came in a far second, lagging .550 points behind. Simes said, part of the reason for such a strong performance on the vault was that the apparatus was the last event of the four and each competitor got two chances to do it right. "We were pretty fired up by the last rotation," Simes said. "We kept the ball rolling - we started off good and fin- ished great." The floor exercise and the uneven bars apparatuses look to be the weaknesses as of now for the Wolverines, although they were not greatly affected by them in this particular meet. The team scores for the two events were 48.200 for floor exercise and 48.100 for uneven bars. The breaks in the routines on both floor and bars are fixable with practice and Michigan is focusing more on tight- ening up the routines instead of worry- ing about the scoring, Simes said. Despite the lower score in uneven bars, senior Nikki Peters managed to fin- ish with a first-place tie on the event, scoring a 9.750. None of the Michigan freshmen com- peted in the meet this weekend, although sophomore Karina Senior performed in her first collegiate competition and fin- ished with a tie for fourth place on the balance beam, scoring 9.650. Senior was initially only supposed to exhibition her routine, but was put into the lineup at the last minute. "We were all so excited for Karina," Simes said. "We all knew she could do it and it was really great to see her perform in competition as well as she does in the gym." The next meet for the Wolverines will be this Friday against Minnesota in Cliff Keen Arena at 7 p.m. The Princeton Review MCAT students have an average score increase of 8 points. Enroll by January 15th and beat the price increase Call us today! THE PRINCETON REVIEW 1-800-2REVIEW wwwreview.com Lookingfor,;.CURRICULAR activities? .a- * - REC SPORTS The University of Michigan Department of Recreational Sports INTRAMURAL SPORTS PROGRAM WHAT'S HAPPENING INTRAMURALS Intramural Basketball Officials Needed!! Make the most out of your time here at the University of Michigan and come to iefest '99 Thursday, January 14 Michigan Union 1 : Oom-4:Opm Learn about the ORGANIZATIONS that you can join. o No Exp Necessar ' Officia Paid for Games V aerience .*Get a ry T-Shir REC SPORTS Is are INTRAMURALS ®Flex All Hour Worked Trainin2 Clinics Continue Free Mt a Discover the rdS of becoming xible "s Do not let the pass you by without mikin Get out f the cold andwarY u e free hot apple cider and 'donts You can stay and relax With free bilar COu .teo . SQRG g a DIFFERENCE. - Y-;' ! - . - '-ai .- 'Y-~ /""" . C z".Afav^ AIsl1 II i s I Monsorea ov; ;z 1