DALLAS—The No. 3 University of Florida
men’s swimming and diving team got its busy weekend off to a solid start as the
Gators defeated Southern Methodist University on Thursday evening at the
Perkins Natatorium by a score of 132-102.
The dual
meet against the Mustangs was the first competition the Gator men had seen in
over five weeks and served as a tune up for the busy weekend schedule Florida will face in the
next two days. With the win, Florida
improved to 5-1 all time against SMU and improved their dual meet record to
7-0. Florida
has not lost a dual meet since Jan. 23, 2004 when the eventual National
Champion Auburn Tigers bested the Gators.
Florida took top honors in eight-of-13
events, including three events where all Gator competitors were competing only
as an exhibition.
Getting the
Gators off on the right foot was the 400-yard medley relay team of Ryan Lochte (Daytona Beach, Fla.),
Bill Mrazek (Tallahassee,
Fla.), Adam Sioui (Ontario, Canada)
and Darian Townsend (Montrose, South Africa),
who posted a time of 3:18.62.
Following
the relay win, Florida earned its first of
four event sweeps of the night as the trio of Jan Wolfgarten (Frankfurt,
Germany), Tobias Work (Falmouth, Mass.) and Scott Kaufmann (Sparks, Nev.)
claimed the top-three places by posting times of 9:10.89, 9:11.61 and
9:26.16 in the 1000-yard freestyle.
Florida claimed it second sweep in the very next event as Sioui, Kris Wiebeck (Tampa, Fla.) and Max Jaben (Overland Park, Kansas) went
1-2-3 in the 200-yard freestyle racing to times of 1:39.48, 1:39.80 and
1:43.14.
The third
Gator sweep came courtesy of the one-meter springboard trio of Zach Wilcox (Yarrow Point, Wash.), Vitor Assuncao (Orlando, Fla.)
and Justin Schmidt (Falcon, Colo.), who
recorded scores of 368.62, 328.72 and 311.92 respectively.
The final
sweep of the meet came in the 200-yard butterfly. Sioui,
who captured his third event title in as many events, teamed with Grant Wieczorek (Carmel, Ind.) and Tim Hughes (Winter Park,
Fla.) to give Florida a commanding lead.
Rounding
out the other Gators event winners was Lochte in the
200-yard individual medley in a clocking of 1:48.94, Wilcox in the three-meter
springboard with a score of 351.30 and freshman Daniel Penniman (Pensacola, Fla.),
who raced to the top spot in the 100-yard freestyle in a time of 45.65 seconds.
The Gators
return to the Perkins Natatorium pool tomorrow night at 8 p.m. for the first
day of competition for the 24th Annual Dallas
Morning News Classic. Florida will face
three ranked teams in No. 6 California, No. 19 Texas A&M
and No. 24 Florida State, while also competing against the meet host SMU and
PAC-10-foe Arizona
State.
-UF-
