March 2, 2004
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This Week
The Arizona State men's swimming team heads to Long Beach, Calif., this week to compete in the 2004 Pac-10 Men's Swimming Championship March 3-6. This year's meet begins on Wednesday night at 6 p.m. PST with the 800 freestyle relay and the 200 medley relay.
The rest of the days will feature preliminaries at 11 a.m. and finals at 6 p.m. Thursday's events are the 500 free, 200 IM, 50 free and 200 free relay. Friday's events are the 400 IM, 100 fly, 200 free, 100 breast, 100 back and 400 medley relay. Saturday's events are the 1650 free, 200 back, 100 free, 200 breast, 200 fly and 400 free relay.
The Pac-10 Men's Diving Championship was held last week in Federal Way, Wash., and the scores from that meet will be figured into the scores this week in Long Beach.
The Polls
In the final dual meet poll released by the CSCAA for the 2003-04 season, the ASU men are ranked 15th while the women are ranked 22nd. For the complete poll, see the full version of this release or visit www.cscaa.org.
Women, Last Week at the Pac-10s
With a total of 863 points, the Sun Devil women earned their highest conference finish since the 1995 season, placing fifth at the Pac-10 Women's Swimming Championship held February 25-28 at the Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool in Long Beach.
Winning her first conference title was junior All-American Florencia Szigeti who turned in an exceptional effort in the 200 freestyle (1:46.46) and broke her own school record she set earlier that day in the preliminaries. Szigeti also finished fourth in the 100 free (49.85) and sixth in the 50 free (23.26). Junior All-American ?gnes Kov?cs placed second in the 100 breast (1:00.56), third in the 200 breast (2:10.32) and fourth in the 200 IM (1:59.58). Other Sun Devils who finished in the top eight included senior All-American Petra Banovic in the 200 free (6th-1:47.99) and junior Cara DeVinny in the 400 IM (8th-4:17.79).
Divers, Last Week at the Pac-10s
The men's and women's diving teams had a brilliant week at the Pac-10 Diving Championships in Federal Way, Wash., winning four Pac-10 titles altogether. On the men's side, sophomore All-American Joona Puhakka swept the springboard events for the second year running, claiming the 1m (381.20) and 3m (674.75) in dominating fashion. His 3m score beat his own school record by almost 25 points. He placed 11th on platform (398.25) on the final day. Also competing for the men were junior Gordon Blukis (7th-1m-272.05; 7th-3m-497.80; 6th-platform-414.85), junior Thomas McCrummen (10th-1m-266.30; 10th-3m-463.25; 8th-platform-403.80) and sophomore Brant Bingham (14th-1m-244.85; 15th-3m-396.05; 17th-platform-271.15).
For the women, junior All-American Trisha Tumlinson won both the 3m (520.95) and the platform (433.65) titles to become the first Sun Devil female diver since Tracy Cox in 1987 to win two conference crowns in the same year. Tumlinson also placed fourth on the 1m (278.90). Also competing for the women were senior Jessica Stenson (8th-1m-244.50; 10th-3m-404.70; 7th-platform-328.20), freshman Cassidy Farwell (14th-1m-209.55; 16th-3m-343.20; 11th-platform-308.75) and junior Nicole Zukowski (23rd-1m-162.20; 18th-3m-339.05; 17th-platform-264.20).
Puhakka Fifth At Diving World Cup
In a meet featuring the best divers in the world, Arizona State's Joona Puhakka placed fifth on the 3-meter springboard February 20 while competing for his native Finland at the FINA Diving World Cup at the Olympic Aquatic Center in Athens, Greece. The sophomore hit all six of his dives in the final round to score a 680.13, a career-best. Puhakka showed his poise after narrowly making the final round with a 12th-place finish in the semifinals. The fifth-place showing marks his highest finish ever on the 3m in an international meet and the score all but assures him a spot on Finland's Olympic roster.
Follow The Action Online
The men's Pac-10 Championships in Long Beach are being hosted by USC. USC's Pac-10 Championships webpage can be accessed through www.USCTrojans.com or the webpage's direct address by clicking here. The site contains links to updated information on all competing teams and will have event results.