Courtesy: Texas A&M Athletics
COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The Texas A&M Aggies men’s swimming & diving squad will duke it out with in-state rival, the Texas Longhorns in the Rec Center Natatorium Friday, Nov. 1 at 6 p.m. The Maroon & White return to action after a week off, following a thrilling victory over Ohio State that came down to the final race. Texas A&M hopes to keep the momentum rolling and complete back-to-back top-five upsets.
“Our team knows what this is,” said head coach Jay Holmes. “This is a great challenge for our program and a great opportunity for our people, because we are swimming the best… Our guys are excited about this. This is something our guys circle on our calendar every year, because it’s the University of Texas. Our guys love this meet, so it’ll be interesting whenever we get up and throw it down.”
This will be the third consecutive annual meeting with their burnt orange foes after being victorious 158-142 in 2017 and dropping the 113-180 decision last season. In last year’s meet, Benjamin Walker won the 200 breast and placed second in the 100 breast, while Adam Koster won the 50 free.
Walker and Shaine Casas both placed first in each of their individual events in the season opener. They collected six first-place finishes between them for the Aggies. Adam Koster also notched an individual win in the 100 free.
Freshman diver Victor Povzner was named SEC Diver of the Week after securing first place in the 3-meter dive and giving Texas A&M a head start on the leaderboard going into the dual meet on Saturday.
“Diving can go any way. Our divers Kurtis Mathews and Victor Povzner were both really good against Ohio State and Ohio State has a perennial diving program. So in a lot of ways I’ll be watching swimming, but I’ll be really interested in seeing what happens with diving.”
The men’s 1650 free will begin at 5 p.m. and dual meet action will start at 6 p.m. Check 12thMan.com follow @AggieSwimDive on Twitter for results.
Good thing it’s a swim meet and not an oiled up wrestling match. If that were the case then it would be game over for UT with the aggies having Thibert and Koster to their advantage
Not much duking gonna happen here – UT will crush the Aggiets
Both Casas and Walker have Nitro ties. Walker grew up at Nitro before moving to Houston area. Casas swam his senior high school year with Nitro. Just saying…
Texas vs Casas and Walker
Theall, Koster, Thibert, Mathews… A&M has depth. This is a legit top 10 team.
***Texas vs Casas, Walker, Theall, Koster, Mathews
Nice!