Maryland Opens the Season with a Win Against Johns Hopkins
10/27/2006 8:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming & Diving
Oct. 27, 2006
The Maryland men's swimming and diving team opened the 2006-07 season this Friday, October 27 in a 120-82 win at home over Johns Hopkins. "We are leaps and bounds away from where we were last year at this point in time," said head coach Dave Durden, "I think we can attribute this to our training. Our fitness level across the board is better and we are still trying to improve in some areas strength-wise. Technically, we have just become better racers and we can see this in our faster swimming this meet as opposed to a year ago at this time."
Senior Danny Gray (Carlisle, Pa.) won the 50-yard freestyle (20.66). Freshman Ryan Greene (Minnetonka, Minn.) came in fifth followed by sophomore Chris Chambers (Cheverly, Md.) and junior Jake DiPiazza (Silver Spring, Md.) in sixth and seventh respectively.
Sophomore Dong Kim (Bucks Co., Pa) took the 100 free (46.11) followed by DiPiazza in a third-place finish (50.08). Chambers finished in sixth and Greene swam to a seventh-place finish.
Junior Eric Thomasson (Severna Park, Md.) placed second in the 200 free (1:45.81) and freshman Aleksandar Damjanic (Zagreb, Croatia) was right behind in third place (1:46.55).
"We saw some very solid racing out of Chris Rouchard in the distance events," commented Durden. Freshman Chris Rouchard (Westlake, Ohio) won the 1000 free (9:50.35) and junior Ken Golaszewski (Boulder, Colo.) finished in fourth (10:02.49). Rouchard also swam to a first-place finish in the 500 free (4:50.37), while Golaszewski came in fourth (4:55.11) and freshman Kevin Reardon (Voorhees, N.J.) finished fifth (5:03.04).
Thomasson went on to win the 100 backstroke (53.61) and freshman Spencer Wike (Sterling, Ill.) finished fourth (55.69).
In the 100 butterfly, sophomore Andrew Weinert (Allentown, Pa.) led the way with a first-place finish (52.07). Coach Durden noted that, "Andrew Weinert's 100 fly was a lot better technically than it was at this time last year." Damjanic came in third in the 100 fly (53.00) followed by senior Andrew Doeck (Boca Raton, Fla.) and sophomore Kyle Glennon (Jarresttsville, Md.) finishing in sixth and seventh respectively.
The Terps took the top-three places in the 100 breast with sophomore Eric Cullen (Severn, Md.), claiming first (59.01) senior Tony Miller (Severna Park, Md.), in second (59.04) and senior Tim Shepard (Catonsville, Md.) in third (59.13).
Maryland dominated the 200 IM claiming the top three finishes. Miller won the event (1:57.18), Shepard finished second (1:59.57) and Cullen followed in third (1:59.85). Freshman Spencer Wike (Sterling, Ill.) picked up a fifth-place finish in the event (2:00.87).
The 200 medley relay team of Kim, Cullen, Weinert, and Gray swam to a first-place finish (1:33.80).
Moving forward from the first win of the season, "We still have some young guys that will develop and we are excited to watch them progress," Durden said, "We are not trying to get ahead of ourselves yet. We have to take it one practice at a time. At this point in the season, how we train dictates how we race. It is so important that we come ready to go in a practice-type scenario, almost as important as coming ready for a race."
The Terps will return to action on November 4 in Durham, N.C. against Duke and NC State at 2:00 pm.
