Division II Meet Preview: Florida Teams Clash Down South

This weekend will see three of the biggest teams in Florida come together in Clearwater for the Spartan Invitational. With three of the teams in the same conference and with a significant scoring presence at NCAA’s last year, we should expect some fast swims out of this meet. Read about who to watch below in this week’s Division II Meet Preview!

Meet Of The Week: Spartan Invitational

Photo Courtesy: Sunshine State Conference

This weekend Florida Southern, Nova Southeastern, University of Tampa, and Lenoir-Rhyne will compete at the 2016 Spartan Invitational in Clearwater, Florida. Last year, Tampa won both the men’s and women’s meets, scoring 1468 and 1084 points respectively over the four day meet. Florida Southern was just behind Tampa in second, more than 450 points back on the men’s side but only about 80 points back on the women’s side.

Nova Southeastern will join the competition for the first time this year, which should make this an interesting battle between the three strongest teams in the Sunshine State Conference. At the 2016 SSC Championships, Florida Southern was 1st, Nova 2nd, and Tampa 3rd on both the men’s and women’s sides. The men’s meet was particularly close, with those three teams only separated by 70 points. All three men’s teams were also within the top 10 at NCAA’s last year (Florida Southern was 3rd, Nova 4th, and Tampa 9th), so expect some fast times to come out of the tight competition.

This year it looks like Nova Southeastern will be the team to beat. The Sharks are currently the top-ranked team of the meet for this season, sitting in 2nd (men) and 4th (women) nationally according to the latest CSCAA poll. While the team battle will definitely be fun to watch, be sure to keep an eye out on a few swimmers who have yet to have a full rest this season:

Junior Anton Lobanov (Nova), who is the reigning NCAA Champion and NCAA record holder in the 100 and 200 breaststrokes. While he has only be 56.23 and 2:02.96 this season, he tends to have pretty significant drops at championship meets.
Senior Emma Wahlstrom (Nova), who was third at NCAA’s last year in the 200 freestyle. She has already been 1:50.96 this fall, faster than she was at any in-season meet last year, so don’t be surprised if she has a big drop at this meet.
Senior Martin Hammer (Tampa), who is the last remaining Spartan from the strong sprint group that led Tampa last season. Last year he was 19.88 and 43.94 in the sprint events at this meet and has been swimming near his usual in-season times, so look for some big drops from him.
Senior Marisa Barton (Tampa), who was the runner-up at NCAA’s last year in the 50 freestyle and tends to throw down big taper swims as well.
Senior Marco Palacios (Florida Southern), who was second (46.71) and 8th (1:45.93) in the 100 and 200 backstrokes last year at NCAA’s. He was about a tenth faster than that in his 200 backstroke at this meet last year and looks to be set up to go near his bests again.

The 2016 Spartan Invitational will begin on Friday, December 16th and run through Monday, December 19th.

UC San Diego vs. CSU East Bay (women only)

Photo Courtesy: Kyle Staggs

UC-San Diego will return to competition after hosting the A3 Performance Invitational about a month ago back in November. The Triton’s posted some of the country’s fastest times at that meet, pushing themselves up to third (men) and sixth (women) in the most recent CSCAA Coaches Poll. The Tritons will take on conference California State University East Bay at home this week in a dual meet format. CSU – East Bay finished second behind the UC-San Diego women by nearly 500 points at the PCSC Championship meet last year and shouldn’t be able to challenge for the win, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be some close races.

Morgan McClure, an East Bay junior, is best in the backstroke and IM events, but is pretty versatile and could challenge for wins in middle distance freestyle as well, depending on what she swims. The one place East Bay won’t be able to touch San Diego is breaststroke. The Tritons have two standouts, junior Anshanika Phetbenjakul and senior Jaimie Bryan, who are both ranked in the top 10 of the 200 breaststroke and top 12 of the 100 breaststroke nationally. With the likes of sophomores Reagan Eickert in distance and Amanda Sumrow in butterfly, the Tritons should also have a stranglehold on those events. The meet will begin at UC-San Diego’s home pool Friday afternoon at 2:00pm.

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RIVER

7 years ago

Do NOT forget Indian River State College. GO RIVER!

Jennifer Mason Zoeller

7 years ago

Go Sharks!