A national title, NCAA, NCAA Meet and UF record from senior Bradley Ally in the 200-yard individual medley and five broken UF records highlighted day one of the 2009 NCAA Championships for the Gators. UF resides in fourth place (107 points) following the first day of competition from the Student Rec Center Natatorium in College Station, Texas. Texas (171), Auburn (141), Stanford (130), UF (107) and California (103) round out the top five teams after day one.
With the first national championship of his career, Ally became UF's first UF national champion since 2006, when Gator great Ryan Lochte won three individual event titles (200 back, 200 & 400 IM). The 200 IM title marks the 33rd all-time national title for the Gator men, the 25th individual title in school history. After swimming a career-best time in prelims, Ally returned to shatter Lochte's UF, NCAA, and NCAA meet records in the event with his 1:40.49 swim.
"We had a good first day," head coach Gregg Troy said. "We swam outstanding this morning and had a few school records. We weren't quite as sharp this evening, but we still had some good races. Bradley Ally was absolutely outstanding. He's been working so hard all year and he really deserves the national championship."
Juniors Shaune Fraser and Omar Pinzon, who both additionally swam career-bests in prelims of the 200 IM, joined Ally in the championship final of the event, finishing fifth (1:42.88) and seventh (1:43.93), respectively.
After swimming a UF record-breaking 200-yard free relay in preliminaries (1:16.76), the Gators switched up the quartet, swimming sophomore Brett Fraser, junior Roberto Gomez, junior Raul Martinez and senior Rex Tullius. The quartet swam to an eighth-place 1:18.05 finish to kick off the finals session.
Sophomore Balazs Gercsak, who eclipsed a UF record in prelims with his career-best time of 4:14.67, returned Thursday evening and clocked a 4:23.13, eighth-place finals finish in the event.
UF closed out the evening session with a fifth-place finish in the 400-yard medley relay, composed of Pinzon, junior Clark Burckle, Ally and Fraser (S). The quartet swam to a time of 3:05.75 to carry the Gators into day two of the championship meet in fourth place.
