Florida coach Gregg Troy is tired of second place.
After both the men’s and women’s swimming teams finished second at last season’s Southeastern Conference Championship meet, Troy hoped his swimmers would step up, both individually and as a team, at this year’s meet in Knoxville, Tenn.
“We have some tremendous individuals, but it remains to be seen if we’re deep enough, team-wise, to do what we need to do,” Troy said Monday.
Two days later, though, Troy and his swimmers got an idea of what they are capable of during the first day of the four-day SEC Championship meet, and it included a pair of second- and third-place finishes.
After recording the seventh-fastest time in UF history during the 200-yard freestyle preliminary heats with a 1:29.75 on Wednesday morning, the Gators women’s 200-yard medley relay of Elizabeth Beisel, Hilda Luthersdottir, Ellese Zalewski and Sarah Bateman followed it up with a third-place finish in the finals. The team reached the podium thanks to a solid final leg by Bateman, who finished her split in 21.6 seconds and helped secure the fifth-best time in school history (1:37.29).
The men’s 200 medley relay team matched the women with a third-place finish thanks to Brad deBorde’s 18.74 split in the final leg of the finals.
While both 200-yard relay teams finished with bronze, the men’s and women’s 800-yard freestyle relay teams each took home silver in Knoxville.
Beisel put the women’s 800 freestyle relay team in first heading into the final leg, but the Gators settled for the second-fastest time in the country this year (7:00.32).
The men’s 800 freestyle relay team of Marcin Cieslak, Connor Signorin, Nicholas Caldwell and Eduardo Solaeche was edged out in a tight race when Auburn’s Zane Grothe closed in on Eduardo Solaeche in the final five yards and touched the wall .23 seconds before Solaeche.
“On paper, we’re maybe the third-best men’s team at the meet and maybe the fourth-best women’s team,” Troy said Monday. “We’re better than that, and fortunately they don’t swim the meet on paper.”
Contact Tom Green at tgreen@alligator.org.
