It was a defining day for Florida’s No. 1 men’s and No. 5 women’s swimming and diving teams at the Southeastern Conference Championships.
The defending SEC champion Gators men’s squad moved into first, ahead of No. 13 Auburn, picking up two more gold medals on Day 3 while the women also earned their first two wins but remain in second behind No. 1 Georgia.
The Bulldogs top-ranked women’s team sat on a pedestal of perfection having won all 15 event finals heading into the third day of competition, but senior Elizabeth Beisel put a quick end to that by claiming gold in the 400-yard individual medley (3:59.26) for Florida to start Day 3’s finals.
It was Beisel’s first win at this year’s conference meet and eighth overall, giving her a career sweep at SECs in the 400-yard IM.
“It’s pretty cool to be able to say that I’ve won it four years in a row,” Beisel said. “I don’t think many people have done that, so there was a little bit of pressure before the race.”
In the next event for the women, senior Ellese Zalewski gave the Gators their second gold in the 100-yard butterfly (51.58) with a 0.11 second difference between first and second. It was Zalewski’s first SEC title.
Although Georgia’s Chase Kalisz won the 400-yard IM by more than two seconds on the men’s side, Florida rounded off the podium with Dan Wallace in second (3:38.96) and Connor Signorin in third (3:43.34).
But it was senior Marcin Cieslak that had another strong day for the Gators. After a silver medal performance in the 200-yard IM on Day 2 and swimming the fly leg on the gold-medal winning 200-yard medley relay on Day 1, Cieslak grabbed his first individual gold this year and seventh career individual conference championship when he defended his title in the 100-yard fly (45.59 seconds).
Finishing off the meet was the 200-yard freestyle that featured Florida’s defending champion senior Pawel Werner, but he missed the podium by 0.23 seconds. Senior Sebastien Rousseau captured his first individual SEC title (1:33.23). Not far behind was freshman Mitch D’Arrigo, finishing in second.
“They came in this morning and did what they had to do,” coach Gregg Troy said, “then came back at night and were even better.”
Follow Logan McGuire on Twitter @loganjmcguire
