The University of Florida Swimming & Diving teams notched a pair of victories over Penn State on Tuesday at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center in their first meet of the spring season. The No. 7 Gator men (6-2, 2-0 SEC) claimed victory over the 16^th-ranked Big 10 foe with a final score of 156-133, while the No. 4 women (6-1, 1-1 SEC) defeated the No. 12 Nittany Lions by a 152-136 margin.

In the opening race, the team of senior Ryan Lochte (Daytona Beach, Fla.), freshman Bradley Ally (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.), sophomore Darian Townsend (Pietermaritzburg, South Africa) and freshman Jos Smith (Milledgeville, Ga.) recorded their third-best time of the season in the 200 MR. Smith out-raced Penn State’s Sean Swanepoel over the final 50 yards to  win the event for Florida in a time 1:31.07.

Junior Matt Coan (Plantation, Fla.) recorded a personal-best time of 9:12.08 to lead a Gator sweep of the 1,000 free event. Teammates Tobias Work (Falmouth, Mass.) and Max Jaben (Overland Park, Kan.) followed close behind with times of 9:12.94 and 9:22.42, respectively.

Townsend led another Gator sweep in the 200 free with a time of 1:38.54. Senior Brian Hartley (Indianapolis, Ind.) notched a season-best time of 1:38.79, while Grant Johnson (Clearwater, Fla.) rounded out the top three with a 1:40.26.

Lochte continued the meet by topping his season-best time in the 100 back with a 46.20 performance. Lochte holds the SEC’s fastest time in this event so far this season and has automatically qualified for the NCAA Championships.

Ally capped off a run of five consecutive event wins for the Gators by swimming the 100 breast in a time of 57.41. Sophomore Luca DeMatteis (Naples, Italy) was edged out at the finish line, recording a time of 57.69.

Senior Nick Borreca (Honolulu, Hawaii) dominated the field in the 50 free to win the Gators sixth event of the afternoon.  Borreca topped the field with a time of 20.70. Ally followed shortly after with a win in the 200 breast in a time of 2:02.87. He finished over three seconds ahead of the closest competitor.

With the meet firmly in hand, the Gators exhibitioned the final four events, but continued to put up strong performances. Coan earned a season-best time of 4:30.46 in the 500 free for his second strong performance of the afternoon.

“Big, big performance from him today,” head coach Gregg Troy said of Coan. “We have not seen him do that before. He has some big time potential, which we are starting to see.”

The team of Lochte, Borreca, Ally and Ballatore capped off the afternoon with the second fastest time in the 200 free relay, 1:21.24.

“We didn’t expect to be as fast as what we were in the fall, just because we’re coming off some heavy training. The next six weeks will be nothing but good competition, so it’s time for us to get a little sharper. We were good today, better in some spots than others. We have some people coming off of minor injuries and others who became eligible, so it was a chance to see some new faces.”

In the women’s competition the team of Samantha Vanderbilt (Nashville, Tenn.), Vipa Bernhardt (Bad Hersfeld, Germany), Candace Weiman (Castro Valley, Calif.) and Natalie Pike (Boca Raton, Fla.) combined to post a provisional 1:42.21 and take top honors in the 200 medley relay.  In the same event the UF team of Jamie Reid (Orlando, Fla.), Caroline Drab (Lund, Sweden), Jenny Lago (Wellington) and Colleen Healy (Cape Coral) notched a third place finish in a 1:46.38 effort. Jennie Lindh (Kalmar, Sweden), Amanda Hartley (Tallahassee), Mandy Huff (Gold Hill, N.C.) and Silke Nowotzin (Essen, Germany) rounded out the Gator trifecta of relay teams with a 1:46.66 performance to finish in fourth place.

Freshman Laurabeth Guenthner (Wellington) captured first place in the 1650 freestyle in a provisional and career-best time of 16:43.95. Sophomores Caroline Burckle (Louisville, Ky.) and Pike finished one-two in the 200 freestyle, as Burckle notched a provisional 1:50.10 and Pike posted a 1:50.73.

In the 100 backstroke Vanderbilt clocked in at 56.05, good for first place and a provisional time, while Lindh claimed third in 57.91. Bernhardt notched her tenth first-place individual finish of the season after a 1:02.92 effort in the 100 breaststroke. Drab, Huff and Hartley finished third, fourth and fifth in the same event with times of 1:05.71, 1:05.72 and 1:07.54, respectively.

Reid and Ashley Carusone (Gainesville, Fla.) finished second and third in the 200 butterfly, as Reid posted a time of 2:01.88 and Carusone swam a 2:02.68.  Pike claimed top honors in the 50 freestyle with a 24.02, while Healy was close behind with a 24.24 which was good for second place. Pike followed up her first-place performance in the 50 free with another top draw in the very next event. She claimed first in the 100 freestyle with a time of 51.71, while Burckle clinched second in the same event with a 51.92.

The first Gator sweep of the day on the women’s side came in the 200 backstroke as Reid, Vanderbilt and Kelsy Smith (Cary, N.C.) finished one-two-three. Reid notched a provisional 1:59.60 in the event, while Vanderbilt posted a 2:02.66 and Smith touched the wall in 2:04.36. Kristen Harris (Holmdel, N.J.) finished fifth in the same event in a time of 2:04.43.

Bernhardt claimed her second title of the day, and 11^th of the year grabbing top honors in the 200 breaststroke in a provisional time of 2:15.11. Troy remains pleased with Bernhardt’s performances as the year progresses, touting the senior as a swimmer who is “about as consistent as anyone can be.”

The Gator women swam the remaining four events, following the 200 breaststroke, as exhibition. Kim Larson (Longwood, Fla.) recorded a provisional time in the 500 freestyle with a 4:52.11, while Weiman did the same in the 100 butterfly in a time of 54.09.  Bernhardt notched her third provisional time of the meet with a 2:02.52 clocking in the 200 individual medley.

In the diving portion of the meet, which was held Jan. 6, Jonathan Wilcox (Yarrow Point, Wash.) swept both the one-meter and three-meter events for the Gators. Wilcox scored a 336.38 in the one-meter event and 3796.21 in the three-meter dive. In the women’s one-meter competition Florida’s Alicia Miller (Hobie Sound, Fla.) scored 257.40 points to take first place, while Jeana Bartell (Boca Raton) claimed second with a score of 242.02. Miller went on to notch a second-place finish in the three-meter dive, while Whitney Stern (Safety Harbor), Bartell and Rachel Sowers (Longwood) claimed third, fourth and fifth in the event, with scores of 260.10, 252.16 and 247.13, respectively.

The Gators will return to the water Jan. 12 to meet their first Southeastern Conference opponent of the spring season when they visit LSU for a dual meet. Complete results as well as a recap from the Orange and Blue’s meeting with the Tigers will be available following the competition at www.gatorzone.com.

Men’s Results

Women’s Results