Freshmen power LSU men past SMU

A pair of freshman combined for five wins to lead LSU to a home win over SMU.

The 185-112 win came in a relatively short meet where doubles and turnarounds were that much quicker because neither program’s women competed at the meet.

Brandon Goldman was a three-time winner for LSU. The freshman took home the 200 fly (1:49.95), 200 back (1:48.34) and 200 IM (1:51.10) for the Tigers.

His fellow freshman Elliot Dewlen won the 1000 free (9:25.05) and 500 free (4:34.73). Those two accounted for nearly half of LSU’s individual wins on the day.

If freshmen were the theme of the meet, SMU also got in on the action. The big news for the Mustangs was the debut of Slovenian freshman Ziga Cerkovnik, who won the 50 free in his first ever individual collegiate swim. He went 20.59.

But the arrival of Cerkovnik wasn’t enough to overpower LSU, which showed a wealth of depth in addition to its twin freshmen winners. Junior Frank Greeff picked up two wins, going 1:39.22 in the 200 free and 49.58 in the 100 fly. He also finished second behind Dewlen in the 200 IM at the close of the meet.

Other winners for LSU were Ricardo Alvarado Jiminez  in the 200 breast (2:01.00), Gabe Rooker in the 100 breast (56.11), Michael Saco in the 100 free (46.01) and Daniel Swietlicki in the 100 back (50.21).

SMU was able to sweep the diving events, with junior Devin Burnett winning 1-meter and 3-meter. He scored 359.55 on 1-meter and 397.50 on the higher board for SMU.

But LSU took both of the relays. Their top two teams engaged in a tight battle in the 200 medley relay, with the B team coming out on top. That relay, made up of Logan Rysemus, Alvarado Jiminez, Alex Linge and Saco went 1:30.41 to beat the A team’s 1:31.02.

The Tigers also finished first in the 400 free relay. The team of Linge, Saco, Tyler Crosson and Marco Gonzalez went 3:03.36, while SMU just beat the LSU B team for second place.

View full results here.