Caeleb Dressel wasn't satisfied with breaking the Southeastern Conference, NCAA and American record in the 50-yard freestyle on Wednesday.
So he did it again.
At the SEC Championships, Dressel created early buzz when he posted a 18.39-second time in the 50-yard freestyle preliminaries. That time shattered the previous school, NCAA and U.S. Open records by at least .08 seconds.
However, his newly achieved record would last just a few hours. In the 50-yard freestyle finals, Dressel broke his own record with a time of 18.23 seconds.
"It's almost a little shocking to go as fast as Caeleb did," UF coach Gregg Troy said in a release. "We've done some good things in practice but I didn't expect him to go that fast."
Behind Dressel's record-setting performance, the No. 5-ranked UF men’s swimming and diving finished the second day of the championship meet in first place with a score of 504, seven points ahead of second place Auburn.
Meanwhile, the No. 9-ranked women’s team finished in fourth in the overall standings, with a score of 274. They currently trail overall leader Tennessee by 163.5 points.
While Dressel has indisputably been the best overall swimmer on the UF men’s team, with seven more individual victories than the next-best UF swimmer this season, his talent also translated into the relays.
In the only relay event of the evening — the 200-yard freestyle — Dressel, senior Corey Main, sophomore Mark Szaranek, and junior Jack Blyzinskyj defeated No. 6 Auburn by 0.17 seconds with a time of 1:16.46.
The UF men’s team won three of their five events on Wednesday. Senior Pawel Werner captured a victory in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:13.31, while teammate junior Mitch D’Arrigo (4:13.92) finished third. Sophomore Jan Switkowski, competing in his third overall event of the SEC meet, placed second in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 1:42.55, 0.34 seconds behind Auburn’s Joe Patching’s 1:42.21.
Meanwhile, the women’s team regressed in the pool on Wednesday.
The Gators failed to capture a victory in their four scheduled events. The team was also unsuccessful in capturing a single podium spot Wednesday evening.
Seniors Jessica Thielman and Natalie Hinds, two of UF’s top female swimmers, each captured the highest finish for the Gators on Wednesday night, placing fourth in the 500-yard freestyle and 50-yard freestyle, respectively.
In their lone relay race of the evening — the 200-yard freestyle relay — the Gators finished a disappointing sixth place, 2.61 seconds behind first place No. 13 Tennessee.
Day three of the SEC championship starts today at 10 a.m., beginning with the women’s 400-IM preliminaries.
Contact Sean Doty at sdoty@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @TheRealSeanDoty.
Caeleb Dressel touches the wall at the end of his leg of the 400 meter freestyle relay during Florida’s meet against Auburn on Jan. 23, 2016, in the O’Connell Center.
