SAUL LOEB/Arizona Daily Wildcat The Arizona men's swim team takes a break during practice earlier this season at the Hillenbrand Aquatic Center. The swimming and diving team placed seventh over the weekend at the 2002 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships in Athens, Ga.

The Arizona men's swimming and diving team placed seventh in the nation at the 2002 NCAA Men's Swimming and Diving Championships in Athens, Ga., over the weekend.

The Texas Longhorns, who had slipped as low as third in national polls entering the meet, pulled off an upset and won their third straight championship. Texas managed to unseat a heavily favored Stanford Cardinal team, which had entered the meet undefeated and with a unanimous No. 1 ranking.

Arizona scored 242 points in the three-day event, held at the University of Georgia's Gabrielsen Natatorium. UA's intrastate rival, Arizona State, finished 14th despite entering the meet ranked above the Wildcats in the polls.

Texas and Stanford battled each other for the championship, each scoring more than 100 points more than the nearest competitor, Auburn. However, in the end, Texas was simply too much for the Cardinal, despite winning outright only four events to Stanford's six.

The Longhorns finished with 512 points, followed by Stanford with 501, Auburn (365.5), Florida (277) and Southern California (272).

Swimming well for Arizona was senior Roland Schoeman, who after four years took home his first NCAA title in the 50-yard freestyle. Schoeman's time of 19.08 was just two-hundredths of a second better than his closest competitor, 2000 Olympic champion Anthony Ervin of California.

"It was unbelievable," said Schoeman of his title. "Since my freshman year here, it's something I've always wanted to do."

Even before his victory in the 50-yard freestyle finals, Schoeman had broken the NCAA record for the event. In his leg of the 200-yard freestyle relay preliminaries, Schoeman's time of 19.06 seconds was enough to break his previous record of 19.07.

Schoeman also took third place in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 42.80 seconds, followed by UA sophomore Eric La Fleur in fifth at 43.51 seconds.

Arizona junior Jeff Dash swam a personal-best time of 1:44:42 to finish seventh in the 200-yard fly championship finals. Wildcat sophomore Juan Veloz set a school record in the same event, finishing in 1:43.93 to win the consolation finals.

Senior Kristopher Souther broke his own school record with a personal-best time of 142.70 in the 200-yard backstroke.

The three-member Wildcat diving team - seniors Omar Ojeda and Ruben Vaca, and sophomore Josh Anderson - all came away with honorable mention All-American honors. The trio all earned honorable-mention honors on the 10-meter board, while Anderson also earned an honorable-mention nod on the one-meter.

The Wildcats rose as high as third in the standings on day one of the meet before falling to seventh.

"At the beginning of the year, not many people expected us to get Top Ten at nationals," said Schoeman. "It's really an amazing achievement."