NCAA Men’s Swimming Championships : Texas Outpoints Stanford to Win Team Title

Freshman Jeff Rouse of Stanford won the 200-yard backstroke as Olympic silver medalist David Berkoff of Harvard ended his competitive career by placing second Saturday in the men’s National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Swimming and Diving Championships.

Texas, helped by Shaun Jordan’s victory in the 100 freestyle, a first in the 400-freestyle relay and a second by defending champion Kirk Stackle in the 200 breaststroke, won the team title for the second consecutive year. The Longhorns finished with 475 points. Stanford, which had its string of three consecutive titles snapped last year, was second at 396.

Michigan was third with 315, UCLA fourth with 313.5 and USC fifth with 304.

Eddie Reese of Texas was selected coach of the year.

USC’s David Wharton, who swept the two medley events earlier in the meet, received the swimmer of the year award for the second consecutive year.

Rouse, the runner-up to Berkoff when he set an American record in the 100 backstroke Friday, won in 1:44.87 seconds. Berkoff, who set a world record in the preliminaries of the 100-meter backstroke at the Seoul Olympics and won the silver medal, finished at 1:45.88.

“The 200 isn’t his race,” Rouse said. “He’s better in the 100, but it does make me feel good to beat a world record-holder. I believe I’m a little better at the 200 than David Berkoff.

“I had a sense of where he was, but I never really looked at him.”

Rouse made an error on his final turn. “I jammed the wall,” he said. “I was expected to take another stroke and all of a sudden, the wall was there. . . . I misjudged it. That’s happened to me before, but it was a long time ago.”

Jordan, a member of the U.S. Olympic team last year, took the 100 freestyle in 42.98. USC’s Erik Ran of the Netherlands, who was disqualified in two races during the meet, was second in 43.08.

Mike Barrowman of Michigan, who set an American record in the 200-meter breaststroke at the Olympic trials last year and took fourth at Seoul, won the 200 breaststroke in 1:55.72 with Stackle, who won the 100 breaststroke Friday, second at 1:57.01.

Arizona freshman Mariusz Podkoscielny, a Polish Olympian last year, won the NCAA title and was on pace to set a U.S. Open and NCAA mark in the 1,650 freestyle until the final 50 yards. His winning time of 14:38.09 was 17 seconds faster than the runner-up in his heat and just missed the record of 14:37.87 set by Stanford’s Jeff Kostoff in 1986.

John Witchel of Stanford, who swam his heat earlier, placed second in 14:49.69. California’s Sean Killion, who also raced in an earlier heat, was third in 14:52.31.

Tennessee’s Melvin Stewart, a freshman who was fifth in the 200-meter butterfly at Seoul, won the 200 butterfly in a race in which the top three swimmers finished within 0.7 of a second of each other. Stewart finished in 1:44.30. Bart Pippenger of Nevada Las Vegas was next in 1:44.60, and Wharton was third in 1:44.98.

Southern Methodist’s Scott Donnie won the 10-meter platform diving with 757.45 points. Pat Evans of Cincinnati, who won the three-meter event Friday and placed second on the one-meter Thursday, was second at 708.80 and was voted diver of the year.

Hobie Billingsley, retiring after 31 years at Indiana, tied Cincinnati’s Charlie Kasuto for diving coach of the year honors.

There were several surprises in the preliminaries. USC’s Dan Jorgensen, the defending champion in the 1,650 freestyle, had a time of 15:09.89 and placed 14th.

Michigan’s Brent Lang, who won the 50 freestyle on Thursday, was disqualified for a false start when he tried to defend the 100 free championship.

Indiana diver Mark Lenzi, who won the one meter and finished second at three meters, withdrew after injuring his wrist on his third dive off the 10-meter platform in the preliminaries. Lenzi attempted one more dive before withdrawing.

The injury was not expected to keep Lenzi out of the indoor national championships coming up later this month.