SMU swimmer Matt Roney participates in the 500-yard Freestyle Event Saturday evening at the SMU Classic inside Perkins Natatorium. SMU placed fifth out of six schools. (MICHAEL DANSER/The Daily Campus) (The Daily Campus)

SMU played host to the 27th annual SMU Swim Classic at the Joe Perkins Natatorium this past weekend.

Top schools from around the nation came to the Hilltop to compete and the six team field included University of Florida, University of Purdue, University of North Carolina, University of Michigan, University of Southern California and SMU.

SMU showed its youth against the powerhouse field as the Mustangs placed fifth overall as a team. No. 13 Michigan convincingly won the Classic with a score of 318, followed by No. 9 North Carolina with a score of 302 and No. 7 USC who racked up 300 points during the two-day event. No. 5 Florida finished fourth ahead of SMU and No. 21 Purdue, who finished fifth and sixth respectively.

“We still have some work to do but I’m proud of the way our guys raced tonight,” Coach Eddie Sinnot said. “We have a young team and it’s been fun to watch them mature and develop up to this point in the season.”

On day one of the meet, SMU senior Tom Cole continued his dominant year with an impressive 100-yard breaststroke time of 54.67 seconds.

His time placed first in the field and was a full second ahead of the second place finisher.

Cole continued to beat up on the competition in day two as well. He posted a time of 1:57.75 in the 200- yard breaststroke to win his second first place finish for the weekend.

SMU sophomore Mindaugas Sadauskas complimented Cole’s first place finishes by taking second in the 100-yard freestyle and by swimming the third leg for the 200-yard freestyle relay team which placed third overall.

On day one, the freestyle specialist swam a blazing time of 20.59 to earn a third place finish in the 50-yard freestyle.

Sadauskas and fellow teammates Ryan Koops, David Larsson and Cole teamed up to earn a fourth place finish in the medley relay.

SMU will continue to swim meets against powerhouse schools next week as well.

The Ponies travel to Austin to face both the University of Texas of the Big 12 Conference and the University of Arizona of the Pacific 10 Conference on Jan. 28 in a head to head dual meet..

This will be the Mustangs’ last meet before the Conference USA Championships.