March 29, 2002

ATHENS, Ga.- With qualifiers in all six events on day one of the NCAA Men's Swimming and Diving Championships, Pittsburgh scored 10 points and sits in a tie for 22nd after Thursday's competition.

The first event, the 200 freestyle relay, didn't go too well for Pittsburgh but it still managed to finish in 14th place out of 17 teams. The Panthers' team consisted of Mike Grube (Drexel Hill, Pa./Upper Darby), Adam Webber (Lebanon, Pa./Cedar Crest), Max Von Bodungen (Malmo, Sweden/Borgarskolan) and Miah Heath (Estes Park, Colo./Estes Park).

In the preliminary heat on Thursday morning, the Panthers finished with a time of 1:21.08, ahead of Northwestern and Penn State, which was disqualified. In the evening finals session, the Panthers' time of 1:21.21 again topped Northwestern and Southern Methodist was disqualified giving Pittsburgh a 14th-place finish.

The Panthers had two swimmers qualify for the 500 freestyle but Von Bodungen finished last (41st) with a time of 4:34.97 and sophomore Eric Limkemann (New Haven, Ind./Woodlan) placed 38th with a time of 4:31.53. Neither swimmer qualified for the finals, won by Klete Keller of Southern California in 4:12.83.

Kenny Shelhorse (Gaithersburg, Md./Damascus) finished in 41st place in the preliminary heats of the 200 individual medley race. His time of 1:50.44 was the second-fastest of his career, 0.28 seconds slower than his prelims time at the Big East Championships. He did not qualify for the finals where Markus Rogan of Stanford won the NCAA title with a time of 1:44.03.

After already swimming 50 yards in the 200 freestyle relay, Grube swam the very competitive 50 yard freestyle and placed 41st in the preliminaries, touching the wall in 20.42 seconds. That was just 0.52 seconds away from qualifying for the consolation final. The event was won by Roland Schoeman of Arizona with a time of 19.08 seconds, three-hundredths of a second away from the American record held by Tom Jager.

Senior diver Michael Wells (Downingtown, Pa./Downingtown) finished 30th out of 35 competitors on the 1-meter springboard with a score of 253.2 points. Senior Troy Dumais of Texas won the event with a finals score of 390.35 points.

The final event on Thursday was the 400 medley relay in which Pittsburgh finished 15th with a time of 3:18.52. Shelhorse, Von Bodungen and Grube teamed up with Randy Gertenbach (El Centro, Calif./Paradise Valley) and improved on their prelims time of 3:19.35.

Texas leads the NCAA Championships with 163 points, followed by No. 1 Stanford (143) and Arizona (104). Pittsburgh is tied with Texas A&M for 22nd with 10 points.