This past weekend, Florida battled seven teams in the three-day Georgia Tech Invitational. The Gators left Atlanta with a bitter taste in their mouths when both men’s and women’s teams came up short behind Florida State.
The No. 4 men fell 1055-787, and the No. 5 women lost 977.5-933.5.
Both teams traveled back to Gainesville on Sunday, and with just one day off from competition, the Gators will get another shot at the Seminoles in a one-on-one matchup in the O’Connell Center today.
The meet will serve as an unofficial kickoff to a trio of UF-FSU battles in Gainesville this week, as it is the first of three different sports matchups (swimming, basketball and football) between the two schools. But make no mistake, the rivalry in the pool is just as intense as it is in the other sports.
“There’s no love loss,” coach Gregg Troy said. “About four years ago we lost a dual meet to them; no one was happy. They came back the next year, and we had the house filled-up here, and we put a shellacking on them.”
Troy said that because some of UF’s athletes have ties to FSU, there is an added element to the meet.
“It’s always good to swim them,” he said. “We have a couple kids on our team whose parents swam at FSU, and they chose to be Gators instead, so it always adds a little different dynamic.”
He added that taking on FSU would be good competition at this point in the season, and that he expects the meet to go down to the final relay.
UF senior Roberto Gomez said the opportunity to compete against FSU so soon after the loss at Georgia Tech gives UF a chance to work on some things the team didn’t do right and that the lack of time between the matchups would not be a factor.
“If anything, we’ll be better,” Gomez said. “It will be like a five-day meet, with one day when you don’t have to swim.”
Gomez said the team feels pretty confident going into the meet, even after the result they had just two days ago.
It is possible that UF has moved passed the loss in Georgia and is looking forward to today’s challenge, but one can only expect that Sunday’s result will only fuel the Gators and enhance the competition between these two perpetual foes.
