The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com ', December 8, 2014 - 38 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom December 8, 2D14 -38 MEN'S SWIMMING In rematch, Michigan falls behind Louisville B effo poil fir Bosch, Funk's beat them." Though Mi rts not awarded missing Anders was competing nts as Michigan at the 2014 FINA . sWorld Champion nishes second Qatar, the junior, been able to bring By TED JANES for the Wolverine Daily Sports Writer Bosch, who al South Africa, t, In a swim meet that gave no credit to foreign swimmers, the Michigan internationals overshadowed the rest. But they could not help the Wolverines against Louisville. In their first multi-day meet that included both preliminary andchampionshipraces, theNo. 5 Michigan men's swimming and diving team placed second at the AT&T Winter National Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina. The meet, hosted by USA Swimming, included many professional swimmers as well as collegiate athletes. The structure and scoring of the meet only hurt the Wolverines, as international swimmers were not awarded any points. Michigan finished behind No. 8 Louisville, though the second-place finish did not make much of an impression on Michigan coach Mike Bottom. "At this meet, it's not about the team championship, because it's not a team championship," Bottom said. "It's only the U.S. guys on your team that count. (Junior) Dylan Bosch did not score a point for us. Neither did (senior) Richard Funk. Those were our two wins. It's really hard to call that a team championship, and it's hard to say that Louisville beat us, because if they had scored all of our team, we would've medal in the 200 on the final day He swam a pleth for the Wolverin for the champio in both the 200-yard individual medley , and the 500-yard freestyle. Bosch elected to only swim the 200-yard IM championship, and Bosch, and out of the other four chigan. was swimmers in the pool, three Nielsen, who came from Louisville. for Denmark "It added to my mindset Short Course of wanting to win that race, ships in Doha, because so manyswimmers had wouldn't have affiliations to both schools," g in any points Funk said. "It translated into as, either. a great race. There was a lot of lso swims for energy on the deck. Both teams ook the gold were going crazy." -yard butterfly In late October, Michigan of the meet. and Louisville met in a four- hora of events team meet in Ann Arbor, and es, qualifying the Wolverines took the victory. nship rounds For this recent weekend, the Cardinals had rested up, "There was alot lightening the training of energy on the in hopes a top deck. Both teams performance in this meet. were going crazy." Bottom didn't give his squad this kind of RITA MORRIS/Daily Freshman Alec Pantaleo finished second in the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational, but the team placed seventh out of 37. Pantalco leads 'M'5 reached the podium, finishing second in the race. "This is a middle-season meet, and we're trying to determine what events they're going to be swimming at the end of the year," Bottom said. "We realized his advantage is going to be in the 200 IM, so we were able to drop the 500 free and let him practice." Funk, a Canadian, was Michigan's other victor, taking gold in the 100-yard breaststroke. The race pitted Funk up against his former teammates Kyle Whitaker and Zach Hayden, who swim for Club Wolverine, an elite-level training program. In a race that could have easily been mistaken as a dual meet,Funkalsoswamalongside senior teammate Bruno Ortiz, break, opting to save the rest for later in the season. "When we swam against them in the quad meet, both teams were in heavy training and not really prepared to race at their peak performances," Funk said. "At this, there were differing levels of preparation in terms of rest. Down the road, by having different preparations we'll go into racing our best. "We'll have some more rest. We're on track to be great at the end of the season. At this point, we're not geared toward putting up our fastest times, it showed this weekend." Regardless of the score this weekend, Michigan and Louisville will certainly see each other again. Next time, the stakes will be even higher. By CHRIS CROWDER Daily Sports Writer This trip to Las Vegas did not involve going to a casino, waking up with a tiger in the hotel room or getting punched by Mike Tyson. Though the Wolverines came into the two-day Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational ready to dazzle their competition, they slumped to a seventh-place finish out of 37 teams. "I was not happy, and I don't think the other coaches were happy with finishing seventh," said Michigan coach Joe McFarland. "We thought we could make a lot of noise at this tournament." No. 16 Michigan (86 points) finished behind Big Ten competitors No. 2 Minnesota (146 points), No. 6 Ohio State (120 points) and No. 8 Nebraska (89 points), who finished first, second and sixth, respectively. The Wolverines fell just short in crucial point-getting opportunities, including sophomore Adam Coon's first loss of the season, a 5-3 decision to Virginia Tech's Ty Walz. "We lost some close matches, and it was frustrating," McFarland said. Added freshman Alec Pantaleo: "Our team looked really great the first day and then hit a road block, so we lost a little momentum." Despite the team's struggles, Pantaleo was a standout in the fifth meet ofhis career. He became the story of the tournament as an unranked wrestler who won his first four matches, including wins against the second, seventh and third seeds, respectively. He lost in the 149-pound championship match to top-ranked Chris Villalonga of Cornell, 4-0. Pantaleo was not fazed by the competition or experience he faced en route to the finals. "I just take it one match at a time," Pantaleo said. "I knewthat I could beat anyone at this meet. I didn't let the seeding affecthow I was thinking. And in my eyes, I'm right up there with the top kids." McFarland was pleased with the freshman and the other wrestlers in his class. Davonte Mahomes finished sixth in his weight class, and redshirt freshman George Fisher finished with a 3-2 record. "Overall, we had good individual performances, but as a team, we underachieved," McFarland said. While McFarland may be disappointed in his team's result, Pantaleo said he sees nothing but potential. "I think that in this year or a couple of years, we could win a national title," Pantaleo said. "I'm looking forward to being a part of it." With young talent such, as Coon and Pantaleo - junior Rossi Bruno earned a runner-up finish as well - the Wolverines may be able to achieve their goals. If not, they hope to at least come away with unexpected victories, as Pantaleo did, when they take care of business. Having had little in the way of fun in Las Vegas, the Wolverines now have a lot of work ahead. "This was more of a business trip than a vacation," Pantaleo said. "We were -in bed by 9:30 every night. This is a business. That's what we do." WOMEN'S SWIMMING Michigan shatters records, expectations Women's swimming team sets five new school records By SERENA SAAKE For the Daily After completing three of the most grueling workouts of the season last week, coming off just four days of rest; it would've been easy for the Michigan women's swim' team to treat its next meet as just another midseason checkpoint. There wasn't any hint of complacency though, as the team left the AT&T Winter Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina, with a second- the relay races were where the excitement really picked up. On the first day of competition, the 800-yard relay team composed of Ryan, Smiddy, freshman Hannah Moore and sophomore Claudia Goswell took second place, finshing less than three seconds after Indiana. On day two, Smiddy and Kopas were joined by juniors Zoe Mattingly and Ali DeLoof to take first in the 400-yard relay. Their time of 3:33.91 broke the previous school record from 2011. While the relay swimmers have worked tirelessly in the past weeks after a grueling stretch in the season, they still weren't expecting to be the first team in Michigan history to swim a sub- 3:34 relay. "I place finish, numerous personal bests, three golds in relays and five new school records. Freshman Gillian Ryan began the trend by smashing the school record in the 550-yard fre the second day of co following it up with record-breaking swi 200-yard freestyle evening. Freshmen Clara Sn Emily Kopas joined R record books, both program bests on the i final day of competitio clocked a 1:52.24 backstroke, coming than two seconds ah previous record hole Kopas broke the scho in the 200-yard br with a time of 2:09.70 As impressive individual performan remember being in "It tells the the warm- up poo1, world that thinking about the M ichigan is splits from i the record one team." that, was set my freshman year," Mattingly estyle on said. "I was like, 'There might mpetition, be an outside chance of doing h another that,' but it was just something m in the in the back of my mind." the next But when she saw their time on the board after DeLoof middy and finished the freestyle leg of the yan in the race, Mattingly knew right away recording that they had beaten the record. fourth and "We just gave each other all a n. Smiddy huge hug," Kopas said. "I was so 200-yard shocked and excited because we in more had each done so well." ead of the The celebration, though, der, while was not limited to the four ool record swimmers on the relay team. eaststroke Michigan coach Mike Bottom . has emphasized the team aspect as the of swimming to such an extent ices were, that Mattingly says she doesn't even consider swimming to be an individual sport anymore. "The officials were telling us that they were having dreams about us yelling 'Go Blue!' " Kopas said. "There wasn't a single race that there wasn't someone cheering and putting forward that positive energy." The momentum created by their enthusiasm and impressive performances carried on into day three when Mattingly, DeLoof, Smiddy, and sophomore Madeline Frost took gold in the 200-yard freestyle relay, clocking in at 1:29.84. "We would have one good swim and it would be like a domino effect," Mattingly said. "We would all get even more excited and be cheering even louder, and the energy just really pushed us all to do the best for our team." Unlike for the Big Ten or NCAA Championships, the men's and women's teams traveled and competed together for the meet. Individually, both teams finished in second place, behind Louisville and UCLA, respectively. However, when scores were combined, Michigan took home the combined team title. "It tells the world that Michigan is one team," Bottom said. "That's what we're going for and that's how we're going to look at it for the future." The Wolverines return to action in 2015 at the Orange Bowl Classic in Florida, with even higher expectations. With DeLoof closing in on the 100-yard freestyle school record and the continued success of the relay teams, Kopas is anticipating more record-breaking races this season. "With the work we've been putting in every day at practice," Kopas said. "There's no way we could possibly fail." BUSCH'S Ae miigan a ailyCa0S I Michiganensian YARB O OK A