Photo by Griffin Scott<\/p>\n
ATHENS, Georgia, September 24. THE first meet of the new season for the reigning Women\u2019s NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving team champions took place today, as the Georgia Bulldogs obliterated their conference foes from Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n
Georgia will have as tough a time to repeat as national champions in March as they did last season, but freshman Kylie Stewart appears ready to fill part of the gap left by the graduations of Shannon Vreeland, Melanie Margalis and others. Stewart won her first individual collegiate race, taking the 200 free in a respectable 1:49.90 over teammates Rachel Zilinskas (1:51.32) and Maddie Locus (1:52.18). A few minutes earlier, Stewart had supplied the fastest backstroke split of the 200 medley relay with a 25.97.<\/p>\n
Acting Head Coach Harvey Humphries gave several of his swimmers the opportunity to post first-place finishes. Hali Flickinger and Amber McDermott were the only double winners of the day. Flickinger won the 100 back with a 54.73 and had the fastest time in the 500 free with a 4:51.38. With Georgia routing the scores near the end of the meet, Flickinger\u2019s 500 was swum as exhibition. Flickinger got within a second of her lifetime best of 53.75 in the 100 back, a good sign at this point in the season.<\/p>\n
McDermott started her meet with a 2:00.45 in the 200 back and finished up with a 2:02.77 in the 200 IM as an exhibition swim. McDermott is a national finalist in the middle-distance freestyle events, so she was swimming off-events today. <\/p>\n
Of note is Maddie Locus\u2019 23.09 to lead off Georgia\u2019s 200 free relay at the end of the session. That would have clearly won the 50 free event, where Chantal Van Landeghem posted a 23.58. Locus had completed the 100 fly not too long before the relay, posting a 55.85 in an exhibition swim as the fastest time in the event.<\/p>\n
Other winners from today\u2019s competition:<\/p>\n
Jordan Mattern, 1000 free (9:59.71)
\nEmily Cameron, 100 breast (1:03.91)
\nMegan Kingsley, 200 fly (2:01.47)
\nLauren Harrington, 50 free (23.58)
\nMeaghan Raab, 200 breast (2:19.14)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Photo by Griffin Scott ATHENS, Georgia, September 24. THE first meet of the new season for the reigning Women\u2019s NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving team champions took place today,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":104092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[26894,27877,27882,248,42657,21378,30767,26897,29328,33036,25844,25178,776,30119,26907],"class_list":["post-110462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-college","tag-amber-mcdermott","tag-chantal-van-landeghem","tag-emily-cameron","tag-georgia","tag-hali-flickinger","tag-harvey-humphries","tag-jordan-mattern","tag-lauren-harrington","tag-maddie-locus","tag-meaghan-raab","tag-megan-kingsley","tag-melanie-margalis","tag-ncaa-division-i","tag-rachel-zilinskas","tag-shannon-vreeland"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n