Florida’s men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams will compete in the annual Georgia Tech Invitational at the McAuley Aquatic Center this weekend.
The competition will be the last meet of 2019 before UF wraps up competition for the fall.
The invitational is a three-day competition that will hold prelims at 10 a.m. each day, followed by finals among the top-30 prelim times at 5:30 p.m.
UF’s No. 6 men’s team (6-1) will face off against Alabama, Eastern Carolina, Florida State, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, South Carolina and Utah.
The No. 1 women (7-0) will compete against all of the same schools, along with Georgia Southern.
Here’s how the Gators have fared in past Georgia Tech Invitationals:
Going for five
The women have won four of seven invitationals since 1998, with their most recent coming just last season.
The 2018-19 win was aided by the dominant performances of Vanessa Pearl, Leah Braswell and Kelly Fertel.
Pearl posted a top-5 swim each day of the meet and recorded the fastest 200 breast time in UF history.
Braswell and Fertel both posted top-10 swims over that weekend.
Lead the way
UF’s men’s team won last year’s invitational with more than 1,200 points and led at the end of each day.
Florida has three wins all-time since 1998, with their other two wins coming in 2004-05 and 2014-15.
Kieran Smith, Khader Baqlah and Will Davis are among the returning swimmers who helped UF dominate the invitational last season.
Smith and Baqlah were members of the 400 relay team that posted the 10th-best time in UF history.
Davis posted the sixth-best 50 free time in school history on the first day of the event.
See you next year
Florida’s men’s team will return to the pool in 2020 against Auburn on Jan. 25.
The women will be back in action against Vanderbilt, North Florida and Liberty on Jan. 3.
They will then join the men in their final home meet of the year against Auburn.
Follow Dylan O'Shea on Twitter @dylanoshea24. Contact him at doshea@alligator.org
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