A capacity crowd filled the humid TCU natatorium to watch the Horned Frog swimming & diving team take on Texas in the first and, for the men, the only home meet of the 2012-13 season.
Friday’s meet against the Longhorns was TCU’s senior night, adding to the emotion of a meet against the nation’s seventh-ranked swimming & diving program.
“It’s tough to lose these seniors,” TCU head coach Richard Sybesma said. “We’ve got nine of them that have put four years of effort into our program and help our program get better.”
One of those seniors is Adam Szilagyi, who won the 100-meter backstroke with a time of 49.05 seconds. Szilagyi’s first-place finish came just three days after being recognized by the Big 12 as the Conference Swimmer of the Week last week.
“Syilagyi winning the 100-meter back was the highlight of the meet,” Sybesma said.
The senior men will still compete for TCU for another month until the conference championships, but they swam their final meet at the TCU natatorium Friday.
Senior Devin Price said the feeling of swimming his final home meet was overwhelming.
“It hasn’t really hit me yet. I’m just trying to take it all in. Texas is a great team to finish against,” Price said.
In the diving well, Ricky Bradley’s 3-meter score of 343.50 moved him into TCU’s all-time top-five for the event.
“The divers did great,” diving coach Wayne Chester said. “Ricky has been consistent all year, and he did really well again. We are going to be in good shape for the Big 12 Championships.”
Texas, one of only two Big 12 swimming & diving programs not located in Fort Worth, provided stout competition for the Frogs, outperforming TCU in the pool on the men’s and women’s sides.
The Longhorn women won by a count of 147-74, while the men downed the Frogs by a score of 133-88. Despite falling short on the scoreboard, Sybesma said he was proud of his team for the way they worked.
“I’m pleased with the way [my team] competed,” he said. “They’re tough.”
The Horned Frog women will swim one more time in their home pool when they take on North Texas on Jan. 30. The next time both the men and women are in action with be at the Big 12 Championships on Feb. 27.
“We’re going to do some fine tuning in the next month. We’ve been doing a lot of work, so now it’s time to back off a little bit and get ready to explode.”
