March 6, 2013
By Kyra Geithman, SDA Media Relations
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. - Alex Coci and Thibaut Capitaine led the way as the Arizona State men's swimming team concluded their bout at the Pac-12 Championships. Coci and Capitaine set two new school records in the 200-yard butterfly and 200-yard breaststroke to help the team set the most new records in a single season since 2000. Both swimmers finished ninth in their respective events and earned NCAA consideration times in their efforts.
Capitaine's 200-yard breaststroke event came first and saw him swim a 1:57.19 in the preliminaries and then a 1:55.84 in the finals. Both times shattered the previous record of 1:58.31, set by Peter Boden in 1987. Capitaine's prior season best was 2:01.95, which he recorded in the dual meet versus Stanford.
Coci followed with a 1:43.72 in the 200-yard fly, effectively besting Attila Czene's previous top time of 1:44.49 which was set in 2000 for Arizona State. The time was Coci's best of the season by over two seconds.
Arizona State notched top-20 performances in the other four events on Wednesday evening. Alex Palumbo, Hayden Thomas, Brendan Weiner and Karl Boscacci came in at 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th respectively in the 1650 freestyle, finishing within three seconds of one another. David Adalsteinsson placed 19th overall in the finals for the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:47.63. Herbie Behm advanced to the finals for the 100-yard freestyle and touched at 20th (45:13). The Devils swam a 3:01.99 to come in at seventh in the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, rounding out the competition. All times were season-bests for the Sun Devils this year.
Arizona State prepares next for the regional Zone E championships before heading off to the NCAA Championships in Indianapolis, Ind. which begin on March 21 for the women and March 28 for the men.