Florida’s men began day for of the Southeastern Conference championships ahead of Auburn for the fist time in the five-day event. The women, after surpassing Texas A&M on day three, set out to overtake Georgia for first place.
With 1038 points, the men are still in first place. By the end of the day, the women would be overtaken by the Aggies and now sit in third 852.5 points.
Florida’s men got the first session off to a good start when junior Sebastien Rousseau won the 200 fly preliminary. He led a group of four Gators who took the top four spots with LSU’s Frank Greeff rounding out the top five.
It was not a lock for Rousseau to get the first seed. He was almost tracked down by teammate Cameron Martin who clocked in four tenths of a second later. Florida then had sophomore Dan Wallace and junior Marcin Cieslak battle for third place. Cieslak came in three hundredths of a second quicker.
All four Gators combined for 112 points in the top five of the finals, but South Carolina’s Michael Flach beat out Wallace for fourth.
After dominating the first preliminary event, Florida only put two swimmers on the blocks for the 100 backstroke preliminary. Freshman Corey Main tied with Missouri’s Logan Mosley for fourth place, while sophomore Christian Homer, who finished 15th, was unable to give the Gators a second swimmer in the finals.
Main picked up 26 points with another fourth place finish in the finals.
Both Matt Elliott Richard Munch qualified for the 100 breaststroke finals and collected 46 points together with a sixth and eighth place finish respectively.
While the men were extending their lead, the women were battling to move up the standings. Senior Jamie Bohunicky barely gave her team a spot in the 200 fly finals after she beat out freshman Alex Merritt from Auburn for the eighth spot.
Bohunicky’s result was the same in the final as she picked up 22 points for her squad.
A similar situation occurred in the preliminary for the 100 backstroke. Freshman Sinead Russell gave the Gators their only representative in the finals after she posted a second-place finish.
Russell tacked on 27 points of her own by taking third in the 100 backstroke finals.
Things worsened for the women in the 100 breaststroke. Neither Senior Sarra Lajnef nor junior Hilda Luthersdottir was able to break into the top eight.
UF junior Elizabeth Beisel speaks to her teammates at the All Florida Invitational at the O'Connell Center in 2012.
