After the first day of competition at the Classic at Southern Methodist University the No. 3 Gators (5-0, 3-0 Southeastern Conference) men’s swimming and diving team is sitting in second place with 154 points, 21 points behind first place Michigan.
The Gators picked up wins in only three of the nine events on Friday; Junior Dan Wallace grabbed first in the 400-yard individual medley (3:42.11), and senior Marcin Cieslak picked up a win in the 100-yard fly (46.73 seconds). Senior Brad Deborde also won the 50-yard free in 19.83 seconds.
Florida faltered in diving. Redshirt sophomore Zach Hernandez, who has had a breakout season in lieu of redshirt senior Chris Jones’ injury, placed last in the field of six with 278.40 points.
Day 2 of the meet will begin Saturday night at 7:30.
Florida hosts Florida Atlantic: With eight swimmers and a diver from the third ranked Gators men’s team on the road in Dallas, Texas, the rest of Florida’s team will face off against Florida Atlantic today at 1 p.m. in a dual meet featuring both men’s and women’s squads.
Competing without most of its top swimmers – four of the six with national top-5 event times traveled to Dallas – Florida’s men will put its 20 dual meet win streak on the line. But the Gators have never dropped a dual meet to the Owls. The men hold a 16-0 advantage while the women own a 17-0 record in the two programs’ histories.
“It gives a chance to see what has happened the last two weeks and allows us to move forward,” Gators coach Gregg Troy said. “We look at the rest of the meets this semester as dress rehearsals.
Along those same lines, we’re looking for the final people that will make the team for the conference meet.”
With SEC’s a month away, Florida still has dual meets against Auburn and Tennessee before concluding the regular season.
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Florida swimmers line up to begin the men’s open 400-meter individual medley during the Pinch A Penny All Florida Invitational on Sept. 28 in the O’Connell Center.
