Clemson Swimming & Diving Concludes Effort at Indiana Invitational

Nov. 25, 2002

The Clemson swimming and diving teams concluded competition in the Indiana Invitational on Sunday. The men finished third while the women finished fifth despite not participating in Sunday’s finals because of travel arrangements.

“I am really pleased with our effort this weekend,” said head coach Christopher Ip. “I think we might have turned some heads around the country with some of our times. If we would have competed in the finals on Sunday, we would have had a chance to beat Indiana.”

Indiana won the men’s competition with a score of 1,149 points and was followed by Cincinnati and the Tigers, who totaled 736 points. The Clemson women compiled 497 points to finish behind Arkansas, Tennessee and Indiana, the champion with 959.50 points.

Sunday’s preliminary events saw the Tiger women take the top two spots in the 200 breast while the men finished 1-2 in the 200 back and first in the 200 fly. Ashley Shafer’s time of 2:19.97 bested teammate Mandy Commons in the 200 breast, while Mark Henly’s time of 1:47.35 beat Tiger Buddy Reed in the 200 back. Rob Kummer won the preliminaries in the 200 fly by over three seconds with his time of 1:50.23.

Also in the preliminaries, Derrick Mulder finished second in the 100 free with a time of 46.55 and Charlie Dillon placed fourth in the 200 back with a time of 1:53.23. Clemson finished 3-4-5 in the 200 breast and the 200 fly. Ryan Cassella, Jordan Raynovich and Gregor Govse finished the 200 breast in 2:08.51, 2:08.82 and 2:10.06, respectively, while Thomas Rappold, Ben Kanoy and James Stoffer finished with times of 1:54.69, 1:54.85 and 1:54.87, respectively.

On the women’s side in Sunday’s preliminaries, Jenna Burtch placed fourth in the 100 free with a time of 51.50 and was followed by Christine Woodruff, who finished fifth with a time of 51.72. In platform diving, Christina Curtuneanu placed sixth with 362.20 points for the women’s team while Craig Thomas finished fourth with 426.35 points for the men’s squad.

Sunday’s preliminary results followed a Saturday that saw Mandy Commons in the 100 breast and Lindsey Kroeger in the 100 back.

The Tigers will return to the pool December 20 to compete against Utah, Northern Arizona and Florida Atlantic in Boca Raton, FL.