The Spartan men were crushed by the No. 5 University of Michigan men’s swim and dive team Saturday.

On Senior Day, MSU fell to the Wolverines 178-106. Michigan walked away with three new pool records in the 200 medley relay, the 200 butterfly and the 400 freestyle relay.

The only victory for MSU came from Ian Rodriguez, who swam what is technically an off event for him. Despite only swimming the 200 breaststroke twice in the last eight years, he ended up beating some of the top athletes in the Big Ten.

Rodriguez held off a Michigan swimmer on the opposite end of the pool in a nail-biting finish, sealing the win with a time of 2:03.41.

“Once I won I flashed my Spartan tattoo at them,” Rodriguez said, laughing. “It’s nice to open their eyes to us as a program.”

The high-ranked Wolverines flew ahead in the 400 medley relay and 800 freestyle relay, while MSU’s A team struggled to out touch Michigan’s B team. MSU finished third in the 400 medley relay with a time of 3:23.03.

The losses put a bit of a damper on Senior Day for the boys, head coach Matt Gianiodis said. Despite high energy from start to finish, the men swimmers were a bit off for their last home meet of the season.

“We had some people who weren’t particularly sharp,” Gianiodis said.

The Spartans will match up with Michigan at Big Tens in a little over two weeks.

It was Kyle Workman and David Zoltowski’s last chance to get in the water for a home meet at McCaffree Pool. Workman will be graduating this spring with a degree in packaging and Zoltowski will be graduating with a degree in engineering.

Julie Angell is a multimedia journalist for Impact Sports

Photo: Julie Angell/Impact Sports