Historic Night for Dressel Leads to His Third Title of Meet

Friday, March 23

Minneapolis, MN

ALL DAY

Florida Gators

NCAA Championships

Historic Night for Dressel Leads to His Third Title of Meet

Friday, March 23, 2018 | Men's Swimming & Diving

Florida sits fifth in team standings with one day remaining at NCAAs

By: Katie Callahan

Day 3 Results | Prelim Recap

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – Caeleb Dressel – the fastest man in history, again.

That's not déjà vu; he broke his own American, NCAA, US Open and UF record in the 100 fly championship final to earn his third national title of this meet. His time of 42.80 was .78 seconds faster than his previous record on 43.58.

Right behind Dressel was the career-best performance by Jan Switkowski, who placed second overall in the event. His time of 44.49 was a personal-best and is sixth best in the history of the 100 fly.

In the 200 free, Khader Baqlah earned the first individual All-America honors of his career, finishing fifth in the championship final. He swam a 1:31.98 in the race, just .02 seconds off his personal-best time of 1:31.96. The sophomore was in a field full of All-Americans and Olympians, but held his own and finished strong in the middle of the pack.

Mark Szaranek won the consolation final in the 400 IM, posting a time of 3:37.64 to earn Honorable Mention All-American accolades. With the finish, he was ninth overall and earned valuable points in the tight team race.

The Gators rounded out the evening with a third place finish in the 200 medley relay. Michael Taylor led off with a 21.03 backstroke split, followed by a 23.83 breaststroke split from Chandler Bray. Szaranek's butterfly leg was a 20.10 split and Dressel continued his dominance in the free, posting a split of 17.37.

Florida has one final opportunity tomorrow, as the meet comes to a close. The team currently sits in fifth place with 246 points, only six points away from fourth-place NC State.

Saturday's preliminary session begins at 10 a.m. CT. Live results and video can be found on the Meet Central page. Finals, beginning at 6 p.m. CT will be streamed on ESPN3.

Saturday's Individual Competitors:

1650 free: Blake Manganiello, Ben Lawless, Andrew Brady
200 back: Michael Taylor, Clark Beach
100 free: Caeleb Dressel, Maxime Rooney, Khader Baqlah, Bayley Main
200 breast: Mark Szaranek, Grant Sanders, Alex Lebed
200 fly: Jan Switkowski

Straight from the Source – Head Coach Gregg Troy:
Overall thoughts on Day 3:

"We got off to a little bit of a slow start this morning. We didn't quite carry through with yesterday's emotion, but we had some people really good this morning after the first swim. Mark Szaranek misjudged the 400 IM, unfortunately, you just can't make mistakes at this level. But it was a good day overall and we are in a good position. We need to come in tomorrow strong. We have our work cut out for us."

On Caeleb and Jan going 1-2 in the 100 fly:

"Two roommates and seniors who are really on top of it. Jan swam a perfect race, he was really great coming home. It was a different event for him, he has never swam the 100 fly at this level. Caeleb is just really good. I actually thought we might be a tad faster, but he handled things really well."

On Khader's first individual All-America honor:

"That swim was right at Khader's best – almost identical to what he went at the conference meet. He swam between the American record holder and a whole heat of really good guys. He came back after a really disappointing 500 on Wednesday. We had a talk about what he did wrong, but he came back and corrected him. That is a good trait for the future and he is only going to keep getting better."

Team Standings:

Indiana - 325
Texas - 306
Cal – 291.5
NC State - 252
Florida - 246

Up Next:

Saturday's prelims begin at 10 a.m. CT with the 200 back, 100 free, 200 breast, 200 fly, 400 free relay and 1650 free
Finals start at 6 p.m. CT. and will be streamed on ESPN3.
Live results and video can be found at the Meet Central

PARTICIPATING GATORS:
Qualifying Gators: