Swim & Dive Loses Close Openers to Louisville

Thursday, October 25

Knoxville, TN

2:00 PM

University of Tennessee

Louisville

KNOXVILLE, TN - 2018.10.19 - All Stars Intrasquad Meet

Photo by: John Golliher/Tennessee Athletics

October 25, 2018 | Swimming & Diving

Results

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. —The Tennessee swimming and diving teams opened the 2018-19 regular season with close losses to a pair of ranked Louisville squads Thursday at Allan Jones Aquatic Center.

The No. 24 Lady Vols (0-1) rallied late, winning the final four swimming events, but fell to No. 8 Louisville 155-145. The No. 15 Tennessee men (0-1) took first in 6 of 16 events in a 156-144 loss to the 13th-ranked Cardinals.

Juniors Meghan Small, Erika Brown and Tess Cieplucha provided all five of Tennessee's individual wins on the women's side and sparked the comeback that fell just short.

The Lady Vols closed the meet with Cieplucha winning the 500-yard freestyle (4:50.04) and Brown taking first in the 100 butterfly in 52.98. Small led a 1-2-3 finish in the 200 individual medley, hitting the wall in 2:00.67, followed by Cieplucha and Alexis Yager.

The Tennessee women finished with a victory in the 400 freestyle relay (3:18.70) with a team that featured Bailey Grinter, Brown, Trude Rothrock and Stanzi Moseley.

In addition to the 200 IM, Small also won the 100 backstroke (53.44). Brown was victorious in both 100 butterfly and 50 freestyle (22.83).

The Tennessee men were led by two-win days from seniors Matthew Dunphy and Zhipeng (Colin) Zeng. Dunphy swept the 100 breaststroke (54.43) and 200 breaststroke (1:59.42). Zeng, the reigning CSCAA National Diver of the Year, won the 1-meter springboard (404.40) and 3-meter springboard (395.63) in his first competition since the NCAA championships.

Josh Walsh provided a victory for the Vols in the 200 freestyle (1:37.07) early in the meet, and Matthew Garcia earned a win in the 100 backstroke (47.80).

QUOTES
Lance Asti, Associate Head Coach (Men)
"Our goal today was to really see where we are. This is the first meet from a really young team. We've seen some great things in practice and are really getting better but we didn't really have a measuring stick until today. Louisville absolutely brought some great competition and helped us to see where we are and where we need to get better."

Ashley Jahn, Associate Head Coach (Women)
"I think this was a great meet. Louisville is one of the feistiest teams in the country, and I loved that they were our first official dual meet this season. They're incredibly competitive and bring out the best in us competitive wise. I think our women today competed really well. There were moments where we needed to really finish, and we left some of our finishing speed on the table. By the end, when we were kind of painted into a corner and knew the things we needed to do to try to win the meet in the last few events, we executed really well. The women's 200 IM was awesome. I'm excited to go into tomorrow. I think we learned a lot, as we always do in competitions."

Dave Parrington, Diving Coach
"I saw some really positive stuff across the board. I saw some rust from having not competed since the NCAA championships for some people and the NCAA zones for others, so we're talking about mid- to late-March. We had an intrasquad meet, but it's a whole different deal going against another team. Louisville came in and dove extremely well. They've had one maybe two meets under their belt, and it showed. ... Colin (Zeng) showed some rust on 3-meter but then broke 400 on 1-meter, and that's a great way to start the season. He missed a couple dives on 3-meter which is a little uncharacteristic, but given the long time since the last competition, it's not totally unexpected, even for a great diver like him. I felt like it was an eye opener for some of our younger divers, particularly Matthew (Wade). He'd never been in this type of environment, turning around two competitions with a 15-minute break in between. For the most part, I was pretty pleased. Tomorrow will be a real test for them to turn it around for 10 o'clock in the morning."