Rachel Madden was the last Florida athlete to qualify for the NCAA Championships. It was also a first for the diver.
To qualify, Madden had to place within the top 10 in the 1-meter dive. In the prelims, she finished sixth with a score of 282.50, and later placed 10th in the finals, putting up a score of 545.40 and earning her way into the NCAA finals.
The Gators women’s swimming and diving team will send eight additional athletes to compete at the NCAA Championships, being held in Indianapolis from March 15-18.
The nine Gators who will compete are Emma Ball, Hannah Burns, Savanna Faulconer, Kelly Fertel, Autumn Finke, Kay Sargent, Sydney Sell, Alyssa Yambor-Maul and Madden.
The Gators are sending four freshmen — Ball, Faulconer, Fertel and Sargent — to the NCAA Championship meet, which is tied for the second most out of the 62 teams competing in Indianapolis.
Faulconer, Fertel and Sargent are competing together in the 400-yard individual medley, and Ball is competing in the 100-yard backstroke. Faulconer will also compete in the 500-yard freestyle event, while Fertel will swim in the 200 individual medley.
“It’s a good thing for the future,” coach Gregg Troy said after the Last Chance Meet in late February. “But they’re gonna have to find out how to put it in a little bit more of a pressure cooker situation.”
The NCAA meet, which Troy was referring to as the “pressure cooker situation,” is a good opportunity for the Gators women’s team to gain experience on the big stage. However, alongside their four freshmen, the Gators will have three swimmers who have competed at the NCAA Championship before.
Both Yambor-Maul and Finke have competed at the NCAA Championship in three of their years at UF. Sophomore Hannah Burns, who qualified as a freshman last year, will be competing in her second-straight NCAA meet.
“The NCAA meet is a little different dynamic,” Troy said. “There’s no swimmers that got there by accident. You had to really perform to do it. Everything is a lot tighter.”
The Gators women’s team, despite finishing the season losing its last two meets and finishing seventh in the SEC Championship in February, is going into the NCAA Championship with confidence.
After performing well at the Last Chance Meet, Troy was pleased with the direction of the women's team.
“We got a little more confidence on the women’s side,” he said. “They raced so well even though they’re a little inexperienced. The big plus for them long term showed us what we can do.”
Contact Sean Denison at sdenison@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @seandenison.
UF coach Gregg Troy encourages his swimmers during Florida’s meet against Auburn on Jan. 23, 2016, in the O’Connell Center.
