For the Gators, Friday’s loss might sting more than most.
On Friday morning, the Florida men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams were defeated on both sides by their Southeastern Conference rival, the Georgia Bulldogs.
Although the Gators fell to the Bulldogs, they didn’t give Georgia an easy victory, with Florida’s athletes posting four U.S. Olympic Trial-qualifying times, 12 wins, and seven career-best performances.
The Gators won 3-of-4 diving boards in the diving portion of the matchup.
Despite the loss, coach Gregg Troy was not upset with the way that his team competed on Friday.
But he knows that there is some definite room for improvement to work on this week.
"Some outstanding individual performances, but we ran into a well-coached, well-prepared, pretty christened Georgia team that raced us pretty well and we didn’t respond quite as well as we would like," Troy said.
"The men haven’t lost back-to-back meets in maybe eight or nine years, so it’s kind of a wake up call for them."
On the men’s side, No. 2 Florida fell to No. 3 Georgia by a score of 172.5 to 127.5.
However, the Gators were more successful as individuals than as a team, with sophomore Caeleb Dressel capturing a pair of wins in the 100-meter freestyle and 50-meter freestyle and third place 100-meter butterfly.
In the 50-meter freestyle race, Dressel swam a U.S. Olympic Trial-qualifying time of 22.73.
Senior Corey Main and junior Jack Blyzinskyj went 1-2 in the 100-meter backstroke, with both touching out with U.S. Olympic Trial-qualifying time standards, with a time of 56.90 for Main and 57.15 for Blyzinskyj.
Also contributing individually for the men was freshman Jan Switkowski, who was the fourth Gator to capture an Olympic Trial-qualifying time in the 200-meter butterfly, coming in first with a time of 2:01.08.
Freshman diver Sam Smith, who already has an NCAA Diving Standard on all three boards, took first in both the one and three-meter board dives, edging out Georgia’s diver Ian Forlini.
"We were in some good races and we lost some close ones," Troy said.
"There were a few spots in the meet where we needed to take advantage of it. There are some real bright spots out there yet."
For the women’s squad, senior Natalie Hinds dominated the meet, leading the women with three individual wins in the 50-meter freestyle, 100-meter butterfly and 100-meter freestyle races.
She also combined with teammates Elisavet Panti, Ashlee Linn and Mollie Pulte in the 400-meter freestyle relay to claim first place with a time of 3:54.09.
Senior diver Kahlia Warner was close to making the Florida record books in the three-meter, posting a career best of 373.28 in six dives, narrowly missing former Gator Monica Dodson’s 2011 mark of 373.85.
"Kahlia Warner had a really strong meet only missing the school record by a half a point — when you consider it was 373 points, that’s not very much," diving coach Dale Schultz said in a release.
Now, the Gators must focus on practicing and polishing their swims if they want a chance to beat another SEC rival, South Carolina, at home this Friday.
"We’re going to take a look at where we’re at. We’re in it for the long haul – the meets that really count are in the spring," Troy said.
"We’re comfortable where we’re at but of course disappointed with a loss. There was certainly no lack of effort, we’ll re-tune a few things moving forward."
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Freshman Caeleb Dressel jumps into the pool at the start of the 200-yard breaststroke event during Day 3 of the 2014 Pinch A Penny Invitational
