COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Texas A&M senior Tyler Henschel won his second straight three-meter springboard dive title to highlight the No. 11 Aggie men’s first day at the 2018 Southeastern Conference Championships at the Student Recreation Natatorium on Wednesday.
In the Team Standings…
With their talented dive crew scoring 93 points in the three-meter dive, the Aggies grabbed the first-day lead with 189 points. Trailing the Aggies after day one were Tennessee (174), Kentucky (151), Florida (135), Georgia (133), Missouri (129), Auburn (121), South Carolina (109), LSU (103) and Alabama (94).
Head Coach Jay Holmes said:
“Today was pretty much what you would expect – it’s the SEC and there are a lot of people out there competing at a high level. There were some really great competitions today. We had a good swim in the 200 medley relay, but there were so many places that we could make improvements. It was a good swim, but we know we’re better.
“Diving is a big part of our team. We have four guys on our roster that are very good and on any given day any one of them could be spectacular. We scored 93 points in diving today and they really set us up for the rest of the meet.
Back-to-Back for Henschel…
Henschel won the three-meter dive for a second straight year with a 469.05 point effort while out-distancing the runner-up finisher by more than 40 points. Henschel’s strong list featured four 80-plus point efforts, including a sparkling 91.80 score on his second dive. Henschel was out of the lead midway through the competition, but he closed the night with three-straight 80-point plus scores to grab the win over runner-up Juan Hernandez of LSU, who was last year’s SEC Diver of the Meet.
“I missed my senior meet because I was away competing at the Canadian Nationals and I was really disappointed about missing it,” Henschel said. “But since SECs are here in College Station, this is my senior meet and I couldn’t be happier to be able to come out with the gold medal.”
200 medley relay just misses podium…
The Aggies opened the night with a strong effort in the 200-yard medley relay as the foursome of senior Brock Bonetti, senior Mauro Castillo, junior Angel Martinez and sophomore Adam Koster just missed a trip to the podium with a fourth-place finish. The Aggies touched in a season-best time of 1:24.19, which makes them the second-fastest relay in school history behind the 2017 edition.
800 free relay…
The Aggies placed eighth in the 800 freestyle relay with the group of Martinez, Koster, sophomore Mike Thibert and junior Steven Richardson touching in a season-best time of 6:25.60.
Story courtesy of Texas A&M Athletics