University Southern California Trojans
Trojans Set For Pac-10 Championships In Long Beach
March 02, 2004 | Men's Swimming & Diving
March 2, 2004
USC's No. 11 men's swimming and diving team begins competition in the 2004 Pac-10 Swimming and Diving Championships this week. The swimming begins Wednesday (March 3) and runs through Saturday (March 7) at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach, Calif. The diving portion was completed last week at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center in Federal Way, Wash.
The swimming kicks off Wednesday with a pair of timed final relays that begin at 6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, prelims begin at 11 a.m. and finals begin at 6 p.m. The Pac-10 will hold an invitational on Sunday (Feb. 29) for swimmers to swim individual time trials.
For results, go to www.usctrojans.com, go to men's swimming and follow the link to Pac-10 Championships.
USC AT PAC-10s NOTES
Freshman diver Michael Hilde already won USC's first Pac-10 title of the season, winning the platform event last week in the diving portion of the meet. It was the 200th Pac-10 title for the Trojans ... USC needs just one more title to give it at least two Pac-10 titles for every year since 1997 ... Among the Trojans' best shots to win a Pac-10 title this year include sophomore Ous Mellouli, who finished second last year to Erik Vendt in both the 400y IM and the 1650y free. Now that Vendt, one of the top swimmers in both events in the world, has graduated, Mellouli is the favorite in both ... Senior Trent Staley has come on in the middle distance free and could challenge there while newcomer Victor Bodrogi from Hungary has added a spark for the Trojans in the fly and back.
FAST TIMES
Taper and Shave's Top 50 rankings as of March 2 had USC sophomore Ous Mellouli the third-ranked 400m IM swimmer in the country, tops in the Pac-10, with a converted 3:45.38 yard time from LCM. He's also fourth in the 500 free and among the top 30 in the 1650 free. Senior Trent Staley and Victor Bodrogi are among the top 30 in the 200 back and top 20 in the 500 free.
RETURNING ALL-AMERICANS
Ous Mellouli leads the trio after turning in five All-American swims last year (500y free, 400y IM, 1650y free, 400y medley relay and 800y free relay). Trent Staley earned his first ever in the 800y free relay and junior diver Ray Vincent also earned his first, coming on the 10-meter platform.
Mark Schubert
USC Coach Mark Schubert is in his 12th year at Troy. He will make his seventh consecutive Olympic coaching appearance in 2004 when he directs the U.S. women's team in Athens, Greece. Three years ago, he finished a stint as head coach of the U.S. men's swim team at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Since he has been at USC, the men's and women's swimming programs are a combined 133-43. In his 33 years of coaching, Schubert has placed 28 swimmers on U.S. Olympic teams; these athletes have won 18 gold and eight silver medals, plus five world championship titles.
Hongping Li
An NCAA champion and two-time Olympian, Hongping Li is in his fifth season coaching USC's men's and women's divers. Li, the winner of the 1998 and 1999 United States Olympic Committee's "Diving Developmental Coach of the Year," award, came to USC after serving as the head coach of the Mission Viejo (Calif.) Nadadores Diving Team since 1993. Li has had immediate and tremendous success in his first four years at USC. In 2003, he helped guide, Ray Vincent, Blythe Hartley and Nicci Fusaro to All-American showings at the NCAA Championships. For Vincent, his third-place showing on the platform was USC's first All-American men's diving performance since Justin Dumais in 1999. Hartley was a three-time All-American for the second year in a row while Fusaro earned All-American honors for the third year in a row. Hartley, the 2002 NCAA Women's Diver of the Year, repeated as Pac-10 Women's Diver of the Year and Li repeated as Pac-10 Women's Diving Coach of the Year. In 2002, Fusaro joined with Hartley to become USC's only two divers to earn All-American honors in all three diving specialties in one NCAA meet. In 2001, Li guided Kellie Brennan to a pair of All-American honors (and her third consecutive Pac-10 1-meter title) and Fusaro to her first All-American honor at the 2001 NCAAs. Both also reached the top three at the 2001 U.S. Indoor Championships.
