University of Tennessee Athletics
In the Archives: 2006 SEC Championships
February 14, 2012 | Women's Swimming & Diving
Feb. 14, 2012
The Tennessee Lady Vols are hosting the SEC Swimming and Diving Championships for the fifth time in program history beginning Feb. 15 at Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center. In the four days leading up to the meet, here is a summary of the previous championships in Knoxville.
UTLadyVols.com
The eyes of the swimming & diving world were again on Knoxville in 2006, as the Southeastern Conference Championships returned to Rocky Top for the first time in 10 years.
With a new leader at the helm at the beginning of the 2005-06 season, first-year head coach Matt Kredich preached the motto "One More Degree."
Research by Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit found that water was extremely hot at 211 degrees but boils at 212 degrees. Though the temperature changes by just one small degree, the end result is a significantly different.
"With hard work and success, anything can be achieved," Kredich said prior to the season. "We are simply asking our student-athletes to recognize that small changes can lead to big results. Make a small change in attitude can lead to a radically different outcome."
What Kredich inherited was a team that experienced both highs and lows, but had four All-Americans on the roster and 10 upperclassmen.
Tennessee was coming off a seventh-place finish at the `05 league meet and had just one top-three finish. Kredich made sure to challenge the Big Orange, as UT faced five SEC schools that finished ahead of the Lady Vols a year prior at the conference championships.
That extra degree paid dividends for the team, moving two spots up to fifth at the 2006 championships and having five medalists.
The best finish came by way of the 800y free relay that claimed runner-up, while Jacque Fessel (100y back), Christine Magnuson (200y free) and a two relay quartets (200y medley, 400y free) all notched third.
In the fifth-place showing, 15 different Lady Vols accounted for 535 points, five school records were broken and UT tallied points in every event contested. Seven also punched their ticket to NCAAs, which was two more than in 2005.
Georgia won the meet with a score of 1,094 points, followed by Auburn with a tally of 1,075 and Florida rounded out the top three with 758 points.
Final Standings
1. Georgia 1094
2. Auburn 1075
3. Florida 758
4. Kentucky 597
5. Tennessee 535
6. South Carolina 363.5
7. Alabama 293.5
8. LSU 290
9. Arkansas 144
