After the second day of the Southeastern Conference Championships, Florida’s men's swimming and diving team finds itself trailing Auburn for first place 417-412.5.
With 443 points, UF's women are third behind Georgia and Texas A&M.
Junior Sebastien Rousseau gave a typical performance by the standards he has set this season. Rousseau won the 200 IM preliminary by swimming about two tenths of a second faster than Georgia freshman Chase Kalisz.
Florida had four swimmers finish in the top eight. Rousseau’s teammate, and fellow junior, Marcin Cieslak came in third place. Florida sophomores Eduardo Solaeche-Gomez and Dan Wallace took fifth and eighth, respectively.
Kalisz was able to finish the job as he and teammate Nic Fink grabbed first and second to tally 60 points for Georgia. Rousseau, Solaeche-Gomez and Wallace came together for 75 points.
Junior Brad deBorde was the only UF swimmer to earn a spot in the finals of the 50 free. DeBorde’s time of 19.15 was just behind Auburn junior Marcelo Chierighini, who finished in18.92.
Just as he did in the preliminaries, Chierghini edged out deBorde for another 32-point first-place performance in the 50 free final.
For the women, freshman Jessica Theilmann and junior Alicia Mathieu gave Florida two representatives in the 500 free finals after taking fifth and eighth respectively in the preliminary.
Sarah Henry earned 32 points with her first-place finish for Texas A&M in the 500 free final. Theilmann and Mathieu combined for 45 points with their seventh-and-eighth-place showings.
Georgia junior Melanie Margalis topped the usual dominance of junior Elizabeth Beisel in the 200 IM preliminary. Beisel finished second, leading freshman Lindsey McKnight and Ashlee Linn who finished within 14 hundredths of a second of each other in fifth and seventh place, sandwiching Georgia freshman Annie Zhu.
Beisel was unable to overtake Margalis who held on in the 200 IM final for 32 points and the individual victory.
Tennessee’s freshman Faith Johnson stole the show in the 50 free preliminary. In the blink of an eye, Johnson beat out Florida’ s Ellese Zalewski by two hundredths of a second. Zalewski was joined by freshman Natalie Hinds, who finished seventh, giving Florida two swimmers in the finals.
Neither Hinds nor Zalewski were able to challenge Johnson in the final, as she snatched another first-place showing.
Florida finished second in the men’s 200 free relay, and the women finished third behind Georgia and Tennessee. Day three will begin today at 10 a.m. and resume at 6 p.m.
