Florida couldn’t spoil Auburn’s Senior Day celebration on Friday afternoon, even after notching a season-high 24 NCAA qualifying times and swimming one of their fastest meets of the year.
Despite trailing in both men’s and women’s events for most of the meet, losing by a combined 64 points, the Gators still received the same solid output from the top two swimmers on each team.
For the No. 5 men, senior duo Conor Dwyer and Brett Fraser combined for seven NCAA cuts, five season-best times and two individual wins.
Their No. 6 female counterparts, freshman Elizabeth Beisel and junior Sarah Bateman, were also dominant with six qualifying times, including two season-bests and three individual victories.
The Gators ran into trouble early on when they tried to replace the points usually grabbed by injured junior diver Anthony Lewark and women’s relay swimmer Shara Stafford.
“We weren’t as fresh as we would’ve liked to have been for the meet, and unfortunately, Auburn has a lot of depth in the sprints and the relays,” Bateman said.
Coming into the Auburn meet, Lewark had racked up a team-high seven diving wins. In his absence with a shoulder injury, Florida missed out on winning either the 1- or 3-meter dive for the first time this year in a dual meet.
While missing a key diver was an issue, the Gators also struggled in the relays.
Stafford, a junior, has been a part of season-high times in four different relays and is the team’s third leading points scorer. Without her help anchoring the 400-yard freestyle relay and 200-yard medley relay, Florida dropped both events, leaving 22 points in the pool.
Coach Gregg Troy could not be reached for comment Friday night as to why Stafford was not at the meet.
“She can really swim anything so it took a lot of us to fill in for what she usually swims,” Bateman said.
Even with their struggles in the dives and relays, the Gators drew close to the Tigers’ lead by the 15th event of the evening.
The men’s team (4-3, 2-1 SEC) swept the 200-yard butterfly led by sophomore Sebastien Rousseau’s NCAA “B” cut time of 1:46.04, and Bateman’s win in the 50-yard freestyle for the women to cut Auburn’s lead on the Gators to six and seven points.
But just when Florida thought it had clawed back in reach of the No. 6 Tigers. Adam Brown, the defending SEC Swimmer of the Week, swept Florida’s juniors Karl Krug and freshman Marcelo Chierighini in the 50-yard freestyle. All three of their times qualified for NCAA “B” cuts.
The Tigers’ lead was then back to 20 and continued to swell onto a 34-point victory for their men’s team on Senior Day.
The women’s team fared similarly after Bateman’s win. Their single-digit deficit lasted for just one event as Auburn responded with four straight wins in the 3-meter dive, 100-yard freestyle, 200-yard backstroke and 200-yard breaststroke.
Sophomore Jaime Bohunicky finally stopped the Tigers’ run with an NCAA “B” cut win in the 500-yard freestyle, but by then, Auburn had a 19-point cushion on the Gators.
The Tigers increased their advantage with wins in two of the last three events of the afternoon. Florida dropped to 0-2 in Southeastern Conference play with the 165-135 loss but will host Auburn and the rest of the league at the SEC Championships Feb. 11-19.
