The University of Florida Swimming & Diving teams kicked off rivalry week with a pair of victories over Florida State on Tuesday at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center. The Gators returned to Gainesville on Monday afternoon following a five-day road trip to the Purdue Invitational, but both teams fought off fatigue to handily defeat the rested Seminole squads.  The No. 7 Gator men (5-2, 2-0 SEC) claimed victory with a final score of 126-115, while the No. 4 women (5-1, 1-1 SEC) defeated FSU by a 138-103 margin.

“I was really proud of them today,” Head Coach Gregg Troy said. “After traveling all day Monday and then having to swim against our arch-rival, who was loaded and prepared, that was something to be proud of. The rivalry brought out the best in us tonight. In our sports it’s rare to be fully prepared this time of the year. I think it was obvious that Florida State came in ready and our kids responded.”

The men’s competition opened with the Gators winning seven of the first nine races before exhibitioning the final two events. The team of Ryan Lochte (Daytona Beach, Fla.), Bradley Ally (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.), Nick Borreca (Honolulu, Hawaii) and Darian Townsend (Pietermaritzburg, South Africa) started Florida on their winning ways by recording a season-best time of 1:29.70 to place first in the 200 MR.

 The Florida men went on to win seven of the 11 swimming events for the evening and posted four NCAA provisional times in the process.

Sophomore Tobias Work (Falmouth, Mass.) earned the first of two victories in distance events for the men by claiming first in the 1,000 free. Work clocked a career-best time of 9:05.77, which was four seconds better than Florida State’s Steve Roof, who finished the race in second place. Sophomores Chris Bernard (Weston, Fla.) and Max Jaben (Overland Park, Kan.) recorded season-best times of 9:24.17 and 9:28.70 respectively.

Townsend won the Gators’ third consecutive race and earned an NCAA provisional time of 1:36.93 in the 200 free. A total of four Florida men’s swimmers earned NCAA provisional times for the evening. Sophomore Grant Johnson (Clearwater, Fla.) finished fourth with a time of 1:39.61.

Ally kept Florida on the winning track by taking the 200 IM in a personal-best time of 1:48.14, also an NCAA provisional time. Lochte then went to work and put the meet out of reach for Florida State. First, Lochte claimed his third automatic qualifying time for the NCAA championships by winning the 200 fly in a time of 1:44.13. He then went on to claim his second victory of the meet in the 200 back with a time of 1:44.73.

Work closed out the meet by earning his first NCAA B time in the 500 free. His time of 4:24.90 in the event clocked in as his personal best, and was two seconds better than teammate Brian Hartley (Indianapolis, Fla.), who also recorded a B provisional time to finish second. 

In the women’s competition the team of Samantha Vanderbilt (Nashville, Tenn.), Vipa Bernhardt (Bad Hersfeld, Germany), Candace Weiman (Castro Valley, Calif.) and Dana Vollmer (Granbury, Texas) combined to post a provisional 1:42.38 and take second in the 200 medley relay.  In the same event the UF team of Jenny Lago (Wellington), Amanda Hartley (Tallahassee), Colleen Healy (Cape Coral) and Mandy Huff (Gold Hill, N.C.) notched a third place finish in a 1:46.25 effort.

The Orange and Blue swept the top three spots in the 200 freestyle, as sophomore Natalie Pike (Boca Raton, Fla.) recorded a season-best time of 1:47.89 and earned the first of nine NCAA provisional times of the meet for the women. Sophomores Caroline Burckle (Louisville, Ky.) and Ashley Carusone (Gainesville, Fla.) completed the one-two-three finish in the event by taking second and third place in times of 1:48.87 (provisional) and 1:51.06.

Sophomore Kim Larson (Longwood, Fla.), freshman Laurabeth Guenthner (Wellington) and senior Jamie Tannhauser (Seattle, Wash.) added to Florida’s lead with the women’s second sweep of the night in the1,000 free.  Larson finished with a time of 10:00.47 to take first while Guenthner and Tannhauser tied for second in a time of 10:07.79.

Bernhardt recorded a season-best NCAA provisional time of 2:03.15 to win the 200 IM and also went on to win the 200 breast with a time of 2:17.02, also an NCAA provisional time. Weiman led the third Florida sweep of the meet in the 200 fly by swimming a season-best and provisional time of 1:58.80. Carusone and Lago followed with times of 2:02.21 and 2:02.93 to finish second and third, respectively.

Burckle led the way for the unstoppable Gator distance swimmers in the 500 freestyle, earning a provisional mark with a time of 4:50.20 to place first in the event.  Larson and Guenthner completed the final Gator sweep of the evening with second and third place finishes in times of 4:51.00 (provisional) and 4:55.27, and in turn contributed to UF’s domination in the three distance and middle distance freestyle events, as the Orange and Blue swept the top spots in the 1,000, 500 and 200.

After eight provisional swims and four event sweeps on the women’s side, the Gators swam their final event as an exhibition.  The 200 freestyle relay team of Pike, Vanderbilt, Burckle and Healy capped off Florida’s 35^th-consecutive victory over FSU by recording a provisional time of 1:33.55.

In the diving portion of the competition, Jonathan Wilcox (Yarrow Point, Wash.) swept both the one-meter and three-meter events for the Gators. Wilcox scored a career-high 339.75 in the one-meter event and 362.78 in the three-meter dive. Florida’s Alicia Miller (Hobie Sound, Fla.) scored 257.40 points to take the women’s one-meter dive.

The Gators will begin preparing for the U.S. Open which will take place Dec. 1-3 at Auburn, Ala. Florida’s next dual meet versus Penn State is slated for Jan. 7, 2006. Complete results from Tuesday’s meet are available at www.gatorzone.com.

Men’s Results

Florida 126, Florida State 115

Women’s Results

Florida 138, Florida State 103