At the Women’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships, the UF women’s swimming and diving team did not waste any time before taking home gold.
After a strong Thursday morning performance in the preliminary rounds, the Gators’ 200-yard freestyle relay squad of Shara Stafford, Gemma Spofforth, Stephanie Napier and Sarah Bateman won the first event of the finals session and gave UF its first ever national title in the 200-yard freestyle relay. The winning relay time of 1:27.79 set a school record.
UF is in fourth place with 107 points. They trail California, Georgia and leader Stanford who is at 142.5 points.
“We had an absolutely great night,” coach Gregg Troy said. “We put ourselves in a great position today. This morning, we came out and swam so good in the first relay, and I think it put a little bit of pressure on us to perform well, which may have affected Gemma’s 200 [individual medley].”
After Spofforth failed to make the A final for the 200-yard individual medley, she swam 1:55.61 in the B final. Although she finished ninth in the event, she swam the fourth-best time out of all the swimmers.
“This is exactly what we wanted to do tonight,” Spofforth said. “We wanted to come in and set the tone this morning. We knew we needed to be good in the relays and we started the meet off great. This morning, I didn’t have as great a turn on the final freestyle wall as I wanted to, but tonight I came out and had a much better freestyle leg in the IM race.”
In the final event Thursday night, the Gators’ 400-yard medley relay team of Spofforth, Lindsay Rogers, Jemma Lowe and Stafford placed third with a time of 3:31.69, second-fastest in school history.
“Tonight, we returned and swam so well. Obviously the 200 free relay was a great way to start the night. Gemma responded and swam outstanding in the IM. Shara was also consistent for us all day,” Troy said. “We had great relays and look forward to racing the rest of the weekend.”
