By
Lindsey Manroel
Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA takes fourth at Pac-10 Championships
A day after returning home from the Pacific 10 Championships, some UA men's swimmers feel slighted.
After all, the team was just one race away from taking home the best performance in Arizona Pac-10 Championships history when UA's luck turned for the worst at the Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool in Long Beach, Calif.
Leading California heading into the men's 4x100 yard freestyle relay, a questionable false start by Arizona resulted in a Wildcat disqualification.
"We felt that we were short-changed," junior Kris Souther said. "We reviewed the tapes and the officials didn't want anything to do with them. They basically just shut us out - they usually don't want to go back on their initial call."
The false start disqualified the Wildcats, and Arizona's men fell 2.5 points shy of finishing third, which would have been the best performance in school history.
Despite the disappointing finish, Arizona managed to find individual success.
Senior Ben Anderson made his NCAA-qualifying cut in the 200-yard butterfly during the event's preliminaries. Anderson went on to take fourth place in the finals, touching the wall at a time of 1:45.72.
Tyler Painter finished strong in the 1650-yard freestyle event. The UA senior recorded a time of 15:02.11, taking third place in the event.
Junior Roland Schoeman took eighth in the 100-yard freestyle and Souther touched the wall for seventh place in the 200-yard backstroke.
Rounding off the success for the UA freshman Greg Owen, who took sixth place in the 200-yard breaststroke. The event marked his first Pac-10 Championship appearance.
Despite a strong team effort, second-place Southern California (722.5 points), third-place California (540.5) and Arizona were all overpowered by the Pac-10 Champions from Stanford.
The Cardinal - who recorded an 844.5-point team mark - walked away with their 20th consecutive Pac-10 title.
"They have an incredible recruiting power, and they always happen to find guys that everyone overlooks and turn them into superstars," Souther said.
After taking a day off, the Wildcats are looking further ahead into the season despite the weekend's frustrations.
The effects of the false start call won't go away easily.
"It seriously changed the outcome, but once the decision is made you can't do anything about it," sophomore Jeff Dash said. "We don't want to worry about it now. We just want to concentrate on the NCAAs, the main meet of the year."
The Wildcats will take the blocks on March 22 in hopes of bringing home their first NCAA Championship in Arizona history.
Although UA is still questioning the disputable false start that halted its chances at making Wildcat history, the team is anticipating a strong NCAA performance.
"Anything can happen and it always does," Souther said. "It all depends on how we all get together as a team and feed off that energy. It has always helped us in the past and will help us this year as well."
