The All Florida Invitational ended on Sunday afternoon at the O’Connell Center’s Natatorium in Gainesville after three days of competition for swimming and diving teams from across the state of Florida.
Going into Sunday, both UF men and women’s teams were at the top of the leaderboard through event 28, with the women’s team at 738 points and the men’s team at 762 points overall.
In the first race of the finals, the women’s team went 1-2 in the 1650-yard freestyle, with senior Jessica Thielmann recording a time of 16:47.09 and junior Autumn Finke a time of 16:47.61. The women placed 1-2-3 in the women’s 200 backstroke, withfirst place belonging to senior Ashlee Linn with a time of 1:57.39. Freshman Sydney Sell came in second with a time of 1:59.49 and redshirt sophomore Georgia Hohmann touched out in third with a time of 1:59.95. Natalie Hinds also took first in the 100-yard freestyle, coming in at 49.76.
In the men’s 1,650-yard freestyle final, UF junior Mitch D’Arrigo came in first, touching out with a time of 15:31.83. Competing in the men's 200 backstroke, junior Jack Blyzinskyj won with a time of 1:45.81.
In the 100-yard freestyle, Florida sophomore Caeleb Dressel, with a time of 43.17; and senior Corey Main, with a time 43.94, finished first and second, respectively.
Florida’s men’s team ended the invitational in first place with 1,080 points, ahead of second place Florida State with 829.50, third place Towson University with 684.50 and Nova Southeastern, which took home fourth place with 590 points. The men also earned three NCAA ‘B’ cut times on Sunday.
The women’s team finished Day Three in first place, going 6-6 on the day. They posted two NCAA ‘B’ cuts and finished with 1,056 points, ahead of Florida State with 779 points, and Florida Gulf Coast with 602.50 points. This is UF’s sixth straight All Florida Invitational title for both the men’s and women’s teams.
“I thought our athletes swam really well as a whole. It was a busy week for all of them as they swam a large number of events. Of course this is a starting point and we’ll see where we can improve from this point in the season,” said coach Anthony Nesty. “I thought our newcomers swam fantastic this weekend. It’s always nerve-racking during your first day of competition and they hung in there and only got better throughout the weekend. Performances were fantastic and our captains continued to lead the under classmen. At this point, we just need to go back to work and continue improving.”
Next on the schedule for the men is a trip to Minnesota on October 10th to face the Minnesota Golden Gophers. The women travel to Vanderbilt University, sans their divers, on October 8th to take on the Commodores.
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Freshman Caeleb Dressel jumps into the pool at the start of the 200-yard breaststroke event during Day 3 of the 2014 Pinch A Penny Invitational
