After a two-week midseason break, Florida is confident heading into this weekend's Georgia Tech Invite.
The reason for the Gators' confidence? The format of the meet.
Florida coach Gregg Troy has encouraged his teams to compete in events that have schedules comparable to meets like the Southeastern Conference Championship and NCAA Championships, with early-morning preliminaries followed by afternoon finals for each race. This was the rationale behind the All-Florida Invitational in October, which has a nearly identical schedule to this weekend's event.
“Instead of talking to them all year and badgering them about how tough it is to be good at the NCAA meet in the morning, we put them in a dynamic where they’ve got to get up and go,” said Troy about his emphasis on competing in meets with morning prelims and afternoon finals.
Another parallel between the Georgia Tech Invite and the All-Florida Invitational is the similarity of the field. In Atlanta, the Gators face a field that includes Florida State, Miami, Florida Gulf Coast and Florida Atlantic, all teams that competed in Gainesville. No. 22 Virginia Tech, Clemson, Emory, and host Georgia Tech, will also be competing this weekend.
With a familiar field, Troy and the Gators are hoping for similar results to the men's and women's first-place finishes in the All-Florida Invitational.
The extra rest could also provide a boost for the women and men, who debuted at No. 4 and No. 7, respectively, in the first College Swimming Coaches Association of America poll, which was released last week.
In the first half of the fall season, the Florida women swam a busy schedule highlighted by a win against No. 7 Stanford and No. 16 Michigan in a double dual meet in Ann Arbor, Mich. Their only loss was a nail-biter to No. 1 Georgia.
As expected, the team has leaned on the strong performances of Olympic hopefuls Teresa Crippen, Sarah Bateman and Elizabeth Beisel, but has been bolstered by breakout seasons from junior Jamie Bohunicky and freshman Rebecca Rainer.
The Florida men swam a far less hectic early-season schedule, only competing in dual meets against No. 9 Georgia, No. 20 LSU and No. 23 Florida State, as well as the season-opening All-Florida Invitational.
The Gators’ undefeated start to the season was thanks largely to the performances of a highly touted freshman class that included Matt Elliott, Matthew Curby and Eduardo Solaeche. Sophomores Marcin Cieslak, Brad deBorde and Connor Signorin have also been stalwarts in Florida’s lineup, and will be relied on when the Georgia Tech Invite kicks off today in Atlanta.
