Vols third, Lady Vols fourth in SEC swimming

Tennessee ended the SEC swimming and diving championships on a good note Saturday at Auburn, Ala.

Vols Barry Murphy, Michael DeRocco, Jonas Persson and Nolan Morrell finished second in the 400 freestyle relay, beating the UT record with a time of 2 minutes, 50.34 seconds.

Auburn, as it did in most every event last week, took first in 2:46.03.

The Tigers dominated the championships, collecting 880.5 points to 626 for runnerup Florida and 584 for Tennessee.

The Lady Vols ended fourth in their potion of competition, won by Florida.

The Vols also got a school record from Geoff Sanders in th 1650 freestyle, to place third in 14:59.50. It was a career best for Sanders and put him past Lars Jorgensen, who swam 15:04.58 in 1992.

Florida’s Rexford Tullius set an American record in the 200 backstroke in 1:39.88.

Tennessee’s Morrell swam a career best in the preliminary (1:412.05) but landed sixth in the final.

Auburn’s Matt Target won the 100 freestyle, with Persson and Murphy placing fifth and sixth, respectively.

Mattias Kahlin took fourth in the 200 breaststroke at (1:57.51). Georgia’s Neil Versfeld set an NCAA record in winning the event in 1:52.07.

Divers Michael Muscari and Michael Wright both had career bests in platform diving. Muscari placed fifth with 333.60 points, and Wright was sixth with 327.05.

The third-place finish was the ninth for UT in the SEC meet, giving the Vols 31 top three finishes. Only Florida has more top three finishes with 58.

Lady Vol coach Matt Kredich was pleased with the effort his team showed.

“We had some phenomenal races at this meet,” Kredich said. “Jenny (Connolly’s) 100 back stroke on Friday night was phenomenal, and it’s great to have two conference champions.”

Championships went to Jamie Saffer in the 100 breaststroke and Michele King in the 50 freestyle.

On the final day Saturday, King managed a fourth-place finish in the 100 freestyle in 48.24.

Aleksa Akerfelds matched her in the 1650 freestyle in 16:03.34. Her performance is the second fastest in Lady Vol history and seventh-fastest in the country this year.

“Aleksa’s mile performance was the most courageous race of the meet,” Kredich said. “She hasn’t been able to do much the past three weeks (due to injury), but she had an impressive race. She had the fastest last 200 of anybody in the race, and just a great finish.”

The 400 medley relay team of Connolly, King, Brittany Nauta and Katie Gehring also was fourth in a NCAA “B” time of 3:16.09, the second-fastest performance in Lady Vols history.

Georgia will host a last chance NCAA qualifying meet Feb. 28-March 1 at which UT will try to qualify more teams fro the NCAA Championships on March 26-28 at Texas A&M.