Men's swim team drops pair of duals

The last few days have been a cruel return to reality for the Michigan men's swim team. One day, you're swimming outside 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 another defeat on Saturday to No. 4 USC in Los Angeles. In both meets, the Wolverines lost by an identical score of 138-106.

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.

"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 and 200-yard butterfly while sophomore Chris 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 sophomore 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 competition 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.

01-11-99