Feb. 26, 2013

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina men’s swimming and diving team climbed 28 spots to No. 12 in the latest CollegeSwimming.com Endless Pools Top 25 after a stellar showing at the SEC Championships last week in College Station, Texas.

The Gamecocks, who have 3.93 performance points in the poll, finished eighth at the SEC Championships. During the five-day competition, South Carolina’s men won a silver medal, set six school records and swam two NCAA automatic qualifying times.

“I think this is indicative of the performance our men put up last week at the SEC Championships,” South Carolina head coach McGee Moody said. “When you look at the times and records they set and the things they did, this is just a reflection of their hard work.”

Junior Michael Flach led the way at the SEC Championships, making it to the championship final the 500 freestyle, 200 freestyle and 200 butterfly. He won silver in the 500 freestyle with a school-record and NCAA automatic qualifying time of 4:15.32. Flach also finished fourth in the 200 freestyle and 200 butterfly. Junior Jay Warner swam to a fifth-place finish in the 100 backstroke with a school-record time of 47.26, and the Gamecock relay teams in the 800 freestyle relay, 200 medley relay, 200 freestyle relay and 400 medley relay also set school records.

South Carolina is one of 10 SEC programs in the poll. After winning the SEC title, Florida is ranked No. 1, followed by Georgia, Auburn, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Missouri and LSU. Alabama is ranked 10th, and Kentucky is at No. 21.

The points for the Endless Pools Top 25 are calculated using the average percentile rank of each team’s top twenty-seven swims in each meet.

ENDLESS POOLS TOP 25Rank    Team            Points1   Florida         1.002   Georgia         1.373   Auburn          1.634   Tennessee       1.895   Texas A & M     2.266   Missouri        2.377   LSU         2.968   Texas           2.969   Michigan        3.2610  Alabama             3.8111  UNLV            3.8912   South Carolina      3.9313  Southern Methodist  3.9314  Brigham Young       4.4115  California      4.4116  Western Kentucky    4.4117  Navy            4.4418  Princeton       4.8119  Harvard         4.8520  Wyoming             5.0021  Kentucky        5.1922  Stanford        5.2623  Oakland             5.4824  Southern California 5.6325  Denver          5.81