Hokies Kick Off Season with Pentathlon

BLACKSBURG, Virginia, September 23. FOUR meet records were shattered Friday as the Virginia Tech swimming and diving teams kicked off the 2005-06 season with their Pentathlon meet.

Freshman Sara Smith, in her first college meet, was the star, setting meet records in the 100 free and 200 individual medley. Smith just fell short of breaking the meet record in 100 fly as well.

Junior Mason Walsh(Herndon, Va.) and sophomore Talita Ribeiro (Sau Paulo, Brazil) also had great meets, posting top times in the 100 breast and 100 back. Ribeiro missed setting a War Memorial Pool record by less than a second in her event.

"We were very pleased with the way we swam today," Tech head coach Ned Skinner said. "Our team has been training extremely hard this offseason, so this meet was a nice break in our routine and a lot of fun for our swimmers and divers."

On the men's side, senior Tom Alberi was the top performer, taking first in both the 100 backstroke and 100 freestyle. He was joined by freshman Ian deToll (Culpeper, Va.), senior Neil Savage (Roswell, Ga.) and junior Stephen Jensen (Mays Landing, N.J.), who all finished with top times in the remaining events.

"With our season starting in two weeks, this gave us an opportunity to see where our freshmen were at," Skinner said. "It also gave our returning athletes a chance to get back into the flow of things after summer training."

The Hokies' first dual meet of the season is Oct. 7 with Clemson.

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