Devin Burnett swims during the NCAA Zone D swimming and diving competition on March 11 in Houston. (Courtesy of smumustangs.com)

The SMU men’s swimming and diving team begins NCAA Championships Thursday March 28.

In the NCAA Zone D Diving competition at the University of Houston, Sophomore Devin Burnett finished the preliminaries with 346.60 points. Burnett totaled 691.10 at the end of the first day.

Sophomore Hayden Hodges scored 284.90 in the preliminaries and ended the day with 574.15 points, earning him sixteenth place.

In the preliminary round on the second day of competition Burnett and Hodges scored 328.35 and 328.55 points respectively. Burnett finished the competition with 729.10 points and Hodges with 670.10 points earning him a tenth place finish.

On the third and final day of competition, Burnett finished with 366.60 points for the day, totaling up to 754.90, which earned him first place.

Hodges finished ninth with a total of 582.00 points.

The Mustangs will swim their final meet of the season in Indianapolis beginning Thursday. Competition ends Saturday, March 30 and the Mustangs will say goodbye to seniors who have contributed to the team over the years including David Larsson and Mindaugas Sadauskas who have brought in many first-place finishes for the team this season.

The women’s swim team will swim in their last meet on Thursday, April 11-13 in the USA Grand Prix.

The women’s team enters the competition after placing twenty-fourth in the NCAA Championship with a total of twenty-six points.

At the competition Isabella Arcila, Nathalie Lindborg, Monika Babok, and Nina Rangelova finished the 400-yard freestyle in tenth place clocking in at 3:16.37.

Arcila was previously named swimmer of the meet at the Conference USA Championships.

Both the men’s and women’s teams enter their final meets after recently receiving Team Scholar All American awards by The College Swimming Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) for the Fall 2012 semester.

CSCAA gives this award to college and university swimming and diving teams with a minimum cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 or higher. The women’s team finished the semester with a 3.32 GPA while the men’s team finished with a 3.09 GPA.