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Friday • March 6, 1998
The Battalion
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Swimming and diving teams
compete in Bevo Invitational
By Katie Mish
Staff ivriter
The Texas A&M Men’s and
Women’s swim teams travel to
Austin this weekend to compete in
the 1998 American Short Course
Championship, also called the Bevo
Invitational, today and tomorrow.
The invitational is the last meet be
fore off-season starts for the Aggies.
Lauren Buckalo, a junior on
the women’s team, said the invi
tational is an enjoyable meet for
the Aggies, but that it is still taken
very seriously.
“It’s a fun tournament because
there is not as much pressure,”
Buckalo said. “We're competing in
our off events, events we usually
don’t get to swim. The races are a lot
faster, and we get to compete in
events like the 50 breast, which isn't
an actual event. There are never 50s
in college meets, but in this meet
there are 50s for all the strokes, and
other than the 50 free, you never get
to swim just a 50 in a race.”
Buckalo said the meet is a
wrap-up before off-season starts,
and is a reward of sorts for the
hard work of the season. She said
that even though many of the
swimmers are not competing in
prime events, it is a last chance to
get some good swims in before
the start of off-season.
“You’ve come this far and you’ve
worked so hard, and now it’s pay
back time,” she said. “You’ve got
conference, and now we have one
more time to get some big swims in
and make it all worthwhile.”
Sophomore Michael Colligan
on the men’s team said the invita
tional is exciting because of the off
events. He said he thinks the dif
ferent races will make the swim
mers race faster.
“Events like the 50 breast, 50
fly and 50 underwater dolphin
kick aren’t real events in United
States competition,” Colligan
said. He said these events give the
swimmers a chance to speed up
their time because the races are
shorter distances.
Colligan said that the men have
to have a more serious approach to
the meet than die women because
they are still trying to make the cut
for the National Championships,
and since the time for the women
to make the NCAA cut has already
passed, they can afford to take a lit
tle more relaxed stance in the meet
than the men can.
“The women that are going, are
going to swim different events,”
Colligan said. “Some of the guys
that are going, are going because
they need to push the barriers.”
Track and field tea
starts outdoor seas#
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RYAN ROGERS/The Battalion
Junior Mark Naftanel will lead the Aggies into Austin after an impressive showing at the Big 12 Championships.
By Michael Ferguson
Staff writer
After wrapping up the indoor sea
son in impressive fashion this past
weekend at the Big 12 Indoor Con
ference Championships in Ames,
Iowa, the Texas A&M Track and Field
Team will travel to San Antonio to
compete in the Alamo Early Bird.
With the NCAA Indoor Champi
onships still one week away, this
meet will serve more as preparation
to start off the outdoor season. Coach
Ted Nelson alluded to this fact.
“It’s sort of a low-key meet to kick
off the new outdoor season,” Nelson
said. “It’s not a very high profile meet.”
Other teams competing in the
meet includeTexas-San Antonio, Pan
American and the University ofTexas.
In fact, according to Nelson, many
of the athletes who have already
qualified for Nationals will not even
be competing in this meet.
“Most schools will be like Texas
A&M,” Nelson said. “They’ll be com
peting against the people that prob
ably aren’t going to the National
Championships. That takes a lot of
good athletes out of the meet.”
Nonetheless, the meet should
serve as good practice for many of the
athletes and give them a chance to
once again become accustomed to
an outdoor track. For those not com
peting, it will serve as a chance to rest
and stay focused for the indoor
championships next weekend.
The Aggies are coming off their
most successful indoor season in
years. The men’s team improved from
11th place to 2nd place, while the
women doubled their point total, with
senior Adrien Sawyer accounting for
over half of the points. Coach Nelson
mentioned the transition from the in
door season to the outdoor season, as
well as his expectations of the meet.
“We went really hard indoors;
tiM
•6
RYAN A
Junior Larry Wade and other Aggies who have qualified forM
Championship meet to be held next weekend, will sit out theAl^
probably as hard indoors as we’ve
gone since I’ve been here," Nelson
said. “So we’re kind of taking a week
off as far as really looking to go over
and do a lot of things.”
Following themeei
nio, those athletesfc
head to Indianapolis
NCAA Championship;
take place on March It
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Have you
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