Texas A&M finished second in the team standings with 917.5 points, which was just behind the pace set by team champion Arizona State with 969.5 points. Finishing behind the Sun Devils and Aggies were LSU (912), TCU (352), Incarnate Word (212) and SMU (186).
“It was a great meet with tremendous competition in every race,” Aggie head coach Jay Holmes said. “Most importantly, this meet was great preparation for what a conference meet is like with three nationally-ranked teams in a back-and-fourth battle in the team standings. It teaches our team how important every single point is and how simple things make such a huge difference.”
Castillo, from Zacatecas, Mexico, destroyed the 200 breast field with his record-setting and NCAA “B” cut swim of 1:53.83, which bested his previous best of 1:54.35 from the 2016 NCAA Championships. Castillo finished more than two seconds ahead of runner-up Silas Dejean of LSU.
“The swim of the meet has to be Mauro in the 200 breast,” Holmes said. “That was all ‘want to’ in getting that done at the end of a meet where he swam so many extra events. We sure didn’t prepare him enough yet to do that kind of swim but he was able get it done, which is very impressive.”
Also grabbing a victory on Saturday was senior Cory Bolleter, who won the 100 freestyle in a lifetime best time and NCAA “B” cut of 43.40, which put him No. 8 on the Aggies’ all-time top 10 list in the race.
Freshman Anthony Kim and junior Brock Bonetti both logged NCAA “B” qualifying cuts in the 200 backstroke with Kim leading the way with a third-place finish in 1:44.67. Kim’s time puts him on the all-time top 10 list at No. 6.
Sophomore Angel Martinez flew to a third-place finish in the 200 butterfly with an NCAA “B” cut time of 1:44.78, which moved him to No. 2 on the Aggies’ all-time list and was the fastest by an Aggie in nearly a decade.
The Texas A&M dive crew competed apart from the swimmers at the Mizzou Invitational and junior Tyler Henschel contributed a fourth-place effort in the platform dive with a score of 370.95.
Texas A&M closed out the day at the Adamson with a third-place finish in the 400 free relay with the foursome of Bolleter, senior Jacob Gonzales, freshman Raiz Tjon-A-Joe and senior Turker Ayar finishing in 2:56.69.
News courtesy of Texas A&M Athletics.
A&M is looking solid on the men’s side this year. Top 15 NCAA potential