Virginia's Millen, Raab and Rogulj Garner First Team All-America Honors At Men's NCAA Swimming Championships
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March 26, 2005
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – University of Virginia men’s swimmers John Millen (Lilburn, Ga./Parkview), Michael Raab (Rockville, Md./Walter Johnson), and Vanja Rogulj (Zagreb, Croatia/Split) earned first-team All-America honors Saturday (March 26) during the final day of competition at the 2005 NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships. The Cavaliers finished 13th in the team standings, marking UVa’s seventh consecutive top-15 finish at the national championship. Nine of the 10 UVa swimmers who competed in the NCAAs earned All-America honors. The national championship was held at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center.
Virginia scored 111 points in finishing in 13th place. Auburn won the 2005 NCAA Championships with 491 points, while Stanford was second with 414 points. Arizona was third with 388 points, followed by California (381) and Florida (284).
Millen, a second-year, captured first-team All-America honors for the first time in his career with a sixth-place performance in the 1650 freestyle. Millen clocked a personal-best time of 14:56.24 in the mile. Third-year Fran Crippen (Conshohocken, Pa./Germantown Academy) took 13th place in the 1650 free with a time of 15:04.64 to garner honorable mention All-America accolades.
In the 200 breaststroke, Rogulj, a second-year, picked up his second first-team All-America honor of the NCAA Championship by finishing fifth with a time of 1:56.17. Rogulj was fifth in the preliminaries with a time of 1:56.81. He was sixth in the 100 breast Friday evening.
Raab, a fourth-year, became the fourth Cavalier to earn first-team All-America accolades at the NCAAs with his fifth-place showing in the 200 butterfly. Raab touched in 1:44.34 while earning first-team All-America honors in the 200 fly for the third consecutive year. He was fifth in the prelims with a time of 1:44.38. Second-year Stefan Hirniak (Highland Park, N.J./Princeton Day) placed 15th in the 200 butterfly to garner honorable mention All-America accolades. He recorded a time of 1:46.72 in the consolation finals after posting a prelim time of 1:46.23.
Virginia had several swimmers compete in the prelims who did not advance to the evening session. UVa missed advancing to the consolation finals in the 400 freestyle relay as they finished 17th with a time of 3:01.64. First-years Bryan Stahl (Woodlands, Texas/The Woodlands) and Pat Mellors (Pittsburgh, Pa./Central Catholic), fourth-year Luke Anderson (Charlottesville, Va./Bolles School) and Hirniak swam legs on the relay.
Anderson also barely missed advancing to the evening session in the 100 freestyle. He was 17th in the prelims with a time of 43.53, just one-tenth of a second shy of the 16th place finisher. In his only event of the NCAA Championship, first-year Ryan Hurley (Potomac, Md./Georgetown Prep) finished 19th in the 200 breaststroke with a time of 1:59.54. Fourth-year Bo Greenwood (Manakin, Va./Goochland) was 33rd in the 200 backstroke with a time of 1:47.16.