During two easy weekend victories for the Florida swimming and diving teams in the O’Connell Center Natatorium, the women’s squad made headlines on the diving boards.
On Saturday, UF’s men and women defeated Indian River State College 174-102 and 168-101, respectively, having only exhibition entries after 22 of the 32 scheduled events.
On Sunday, the teams began exhibition swims after 26 events and topped LSU 157.5-134.5 on the men’s side and 171-121 on the women’s.
Senior diver Kara Salamone set a personal best and UF record against IRSC in the 3-meter dive, scoring 356.11 points. That mark replaced the previous school record of 346.75, set by Salamone last season.
Against LSU, the senior set another personal best and school record in the 1-meter dive, scoring 318.15 points to replace her own 317.25 from a year ago.
Salamone’s teammate, Monica Dodson, also improved her personal best in the 3-meter dive on Saturday by scoring 326.41 points.
“Monica and Kara have been diving really well, and hopefully we’re going to carry that on through the conference championship,” diving coach Donnie Craine said. “They’ve had a great season, probably their best season so far.”
In the pool, UF had a routine weekend. Neither the men nor the women faced difficulties on their way to amassing 18 NCAA provisional-qualifying times over the two days.
“It is hard to get up and get ready for meets that aren’t quite so competitive, but winning races is just great experience for the end of the season,” senior Gemma Spofforth said.
Spofforth had five non-exhibition top-three finishes on the weekend.
The dual meets were the first competitions for both teams since early December, but there were no signs of rust.
“We had a great month of training,” senior Shaune Fraser said. “We had some time at home, so the first (meet) is always an indicator of where we’re at.”
The senior picked up six top-three non-exhibition finishes in the two days, one of which was in an event he hadn’t swam all season.
Fraser finished with a NCAA provisional-qualifying time of 4:27.35 in the 500-yard freestyle, an event in which he won a state championship in high school, according to coach Gregg Troy.
“He’s just a (really) good athlete,” Troy said. “It’s not one of his best areas but he’s a tough kid. He’s really matured a lot. It used to be that he’d pick and choose, (but now) it doesn’t matter where you put him, you get a great effort every time.”
Troy added that he was pleased with most of the teams’ performance. However, looking ahead, there are some areas he wants to work on.
“We still aren’t very crisp around the walls, we’ve got to get better in the turns (and) we were really slow on relay starts,” Troy said.
