Full Results
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The No. 7 University of Florida women's swimming and diving team cruised to victories over Vanderbilt, Liberty and North Florida as the team hosted a quad-meet at the O'Connell Center Natatorium on Friday afternoon.
Florida would remain undefeated on the season after posting the best time in all 14 events throughout the meet. Additionally, seven new personal-best times would be set by the orange and blue.
UF would sweep the top-three finishers in four different events, including both distance events, the 500 and 1,000 free, that saw Florida place the top-four finishes.
Individually, both
Vanessa Pearl and
Talia Bates added a pair of victories to lead the Gators.
Pearl added a B-cut in the final individual event, the 200 IM, with her first-place swim of 1:58.64. She would also go on to win the 100 breast with a swim of 1:02.15.
Bates picked up her victories in the 100 back (54.44) and 100 fly (54.45).
Series History
In their first meeting since the 2015-16 season, the Gators move to 5-0 all-time against Vanderbilt with their 190-68 win over their conference foe. UF beat the Commodores in their last meeting by a final tally of 193-69 in Nashville.
For the first time in program history, Florida crossed paths with North Florida and Liberty and now lead each respective series 1-0 with their wins over the non-conference opponents today.
Gator Splashes
- Taylor Ault competed in the 200 fly and would go on set a new personal-best, winning the event in 2:01.08. Nikki Miller finished in third (2:02.63), while Leah Braswell also set a new lifetime-best in her fourth-place finish (2:04.37).
- The Gators controlled the distance events claiming the top four finishers in the 500 and 1,000 free.
- Tylor Mathieu led the way in the 1,000 free as the freshman set a new personal-best swim of 9:59.41 to claim first. Savanna Faulconer wasn't far behind her, tallying an effort of 10:00.40 for a runner-up bid. Georgia Darwent (third) and Allie Piccirillo (fourth) would round out the finishers for Florida. Piccirillo would join fellow freshman Mathieu with a new top collegiate swim.
- In the 500 free, Miller touched the wall first in 4:55.79, almost three seconds faster than her teammate Georgia Darwent, who posted the second-best time of 4:58.41. Bettina Boszormennyi finished in third, while Kalie Novosedliak finished with the fourth-best time.
- Gators took control in the sprint events, sweeping the top three finishes. In the 50 free, Gabby Hillis touched the wall with the leading effort of 22.97, with Kirschtine Balbuena (23.32) and Tori Bindi (23.94) behind her in second and third, respectively. Bella Garofalo picked up the 100 free win with her leading time of 49.72, with Bindi behind her with a runner-up bid in 51.92. Kelsey Dambacher claimed third-place, touching the wall in 52.24. Ria Malhotra was able to tally a new personal-best of 24.34 in the event as well.
- Ellie Zweifel finished tied for the second-best time (2:21.34) in the 200 breast behind Kathleen Golding, who hit the wall in 2:20.56. Mathieu's posted the fourth-fastest time to complete UF's finishers.
- Piccirillo and Braswell joined Pearl in the 200 IM, with Piccirillo claiming a new collegiate-best time of 2:09.22. Braswell's time stood as the second-best time in the event.
- Sherridon Dressel (200 free) and Rosie Zavaros (200 back) claimed individual victories. Zavaros won her race by two seconds and was just .46 seconds from a B-cut.
Relay Magic
The Gators took the top-two spots to start the meet in the 200 medley relay as the team of Dressel, Fertel, Golding and Garofalo led the way with their combined effort of 1:40.48. The relay of Zavaros, Pearl, Guzman and Hillis was right behind them in second-place with their swim of 1:42.24.
Two more UF relays hit the water as Zweifel, DeBoer, Jillan Hatch and Dambacher finished with the fourth-fastest time, hitting the wall in 1:45.97.
Madison Conway,
Ellie Hatton, Malhotra and Novosedliak rounded out Florida's finishers in ninth.
UF capped off the meet by Fertel, Bates, Garofalo and Balbuena winning the 400 free relay with their combined swim of 3:19.48. Bates led the way with her leading split of 48.94.
Florida's final three relays all were exhibitioned, but would go on to post the second, third and fifth-fastest times for the event.
Quotables
Head coach Jeff Poppell-
On competing for the first time since the holidays...
"Well, it has been six weeks since our last competition and a lot has taken place since then. You got Thanksgiving week, kids went home for about nine days during the winter. We had exams. But, we also had a training period that was pretty intense as well. Within that six-week period, we've kind of hit a lot of different things. I wasn't really sure what we were going to get today."
On his goals for today's meet...
"We had a couple different goals for today's meet. The first thing was to knock off the rust after not competing for six weeks. We did use this as an opportunity to give some of the members of our roster to compete a little bit more than they did in the fall. At the same time, some of our stronger athletes swam in events that they're not really accustomed to swimming."
On his overall thoughts from today...
"I was really pleased with the way they raced today. They did a fantastic job standing up and competing. You couldn't tell that we were off for six weeks. In terms of preparation coming into it, I mean, we didn't do a whole lot out of the ordinary. This week was a normal training week for us leading into the meet. Like I said, everything that we've seen this week has been nothing but positive so I was glad to see it carry over into the actual competition."
Looking Ahead
The 2019-20 season's end is quickly approaching. The Gators will hold their final home dual and Senior Day on Jan. 25 against No. 14 Auburn at 11:00 a.m. The meet will be streamed live on SEC Network.
In their final regular season action, Florida will travel to Tennessee to face-off with the No. 2 Volunteers on Feb. 1.
Postseason action will begin with the Southeastern Conference Championships on Feb. 18-22 in Auburn, Ala.
NCAA Diving Zones will take place on March 9-11 before the whole team heads to Athens, Ga. for the 2020 NCAA Championships on March 18-21 to conclude the year.
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