Sickness handicaps Blue men's swimming

Despite sickness, injuries and an absence of distance events, the Michigan men's swimming team found it in itself to swim against the some of the best competition and weirdest oddities in the NCAA.

Friday and Saturday, Michigan traveled to Dallas to participate in the 17th annual Dallas Morning News Classic. The Wolverines finished fifth out of six teams in a meet that usually showcases the top six teams of the previous year's NCAA Championships.

The meet was filled with oddities. Because of scheduling problems most of the teams in the meet were not top six placers at NCAAs last season including Michigan who finished 12th. Texas, last year's Dallas Morning News Classic winner, finished in sixth.

"It's kind of ironic," Michigan coach Jon Urbanchek said. "Last year's first and second place, Texas and Michigan, are in this year's cellar. Texas didn't bring a lot of their top athletes, because they have illnesses like we did. So we left half the team home."

The oddities didn't stop there. Michigan found themselves shorthanded, with close to half the team fighting sickness. Pneumonia kept Michigan's top swimmer Tom Malchow out of the meet, while many others have been fighting everything from colds to bronchitis.

"It's affecting a lot," Michigan freshman Tim Siciliano said. "Actually I went to this meet sick and so did Chris Thompson. We both kind of got over it at the end of the meet."

The loss of Malchow and freshman Tim Barry to the flu left Michigan without its top swimmers in the butterfly. Coupled with the fact that there were no distance events, which is Michigan's strong suit, the team found themselves shorthanded against a lot of tough competition.

Michigan won only three of 18 events in the meet. Senior Brett Wilmot won the one meter springboard with a score of 299.55. In the 500-yard freestyle sophomore all-America Chris Thompson took first place, and fellow sophomore Scott Werner won the 200 breaststroke by nearly four seconds.

Another strange twist to the meet was that the competitors swam consolation races instead of preliminary heats.

"Two people from each team can swim in each event one in each heat," Hopwood said. "In my turn at breaststroke ... I would have been the second overall time, but I had to be in the (consolation) heat."

The Wolverines finished with three winners in the consolation races including senior Andy Potts and Siciliano winning the 200 individual medley and breaststroke, respectively.

Each of the six teams were allowed only eight swimmers and one diver for the meet, which added to Michigan's already cancerous handicap.

"It was a tough weekend, because we were down a couple of the original kids we were supposed to take to the meet," Michigan freshman Jeff Hopwood said. "We didn't have our full roster and we were struggling."

01-25-99