FORT MYERS – The Florida Gulf Coast swimming and diving team picked up a victory over North Florida on Tuesday, capturing wins in 11 events to top the Ospreys, 157-92, in Fort Myers.<\/p>\n
The FGCU women’s & diving team (3-1, 1-0 CCSA) returned to its home pool on Tuesday morning and sprinted away from North Florida, producing a final score of 157-92. Seven different Eagles touched in first place with only Kellie Roedig, Karen Vilorio and Emma Svensson winning multiple events. The Green and Blue would win eleven events overall.<\/p>\n
“It was good to have a conference team here at home,” head coach Neal Studd said. “It was nice to get the girls out of finals and get them back to competing. We had some events where people mixed it up today. Emma did the 50 breast and the 100 IM and we did some other fun stuff. The girls had a good time and UNF swam well too but now we’re looking forward to FAU and Georgia Tech on Friday.”<\/p>\n
Leading off the morning was the 200 yard medley relay and it was FGCU who placed first second and third with the team of Maggie Holling (West Palm Beach, Fla.\/John I. Leonard), Sammy Rahael (Trinidad & Tobago\/The Bolles School), Yee Ching Wong (Hong Kong, China\/Dlocesan Girls’ School) and Nina Schiffer (Dortmund, Germany\/SG Dortmund) leading the way, touching in at 1:51.96.<\/p>\n
Roedig (Huntingdon Valley, Pa.\/Abington Senior HS) and Cassie Niles (Helotes, Texas\/Sandra Day O’Connor) finished first and second, respectively, in the 1000 yard free with times of 11:03.39 and 11:08.50. Lani Cabrera (Barbados\/St. Ursala’s Secondary School) followed up those performances with a first place finish in the 200 yard free, touching in 1:54.08.<\/p>\n
Two more Eagles, Karen Vilorio (Tegucigalpa, Honduras\/Elvel School) and Kristen Julien (San Fernand, Trinidad and Tobago\/St. Stephen’s College), finished one-two in the 50 yard backstroke followed by an FGCU sweep in the 50 yard breaststroke led by Svensson (Uppsala, Sweden\/Celsiusskolan) who paced the group with a time of 30.60.<\/p>\n
Schiffer picked up her solo victory in the 100 yard butterfly with a touch time of 59.43 followed closely by Katie Armitage (Bushey, United Kingdom\/Queens School Bushey) who finished with a time of 1:01.28.<\/p>\n
Sara Hamilton (Stonehaven, Scotland\/Mackie Academy) and Vilorio would secure victories for the Eagles in the 50 yard freestyle and the 100 yard freestyle, respectively to ensure FGCU wins in each of the first eight events. Hamilton closed her race with a time of 25.05, finishing ahead of two UNF competitors while Vilorio finished in 53.55 followed by her teammate Wong who touched in second in 54.11.<\/p>\n
UNF broke the FGCU win streak in the 100 yard back, sweeping the top three, but Armitage restored the Eagles atop the podium in the 100 yard breast with a time of 1:07.57. Roedig won her second event of the morning in the 500 yard free with a time of 5:22.93 and it was Svensson closing the book for FGCU with a win in the 50 yard fly with a time of 25.14. FGCU would swim exhibition in the remaining events.<\/p>\n
Up next the Eagles will remain home for a dual meet opposite Georgia Tech and FAU on Dec. 19. The teams are scheduled to hit the pool at 11 a.m. on Friday morning.<\/p>\n
The North Florida women’s swim team was taken down by last year’s Coastal Collegiate Swim Association runner-up, Florida Gulf Coast this afternoon, 157-92. Today marked the first of two meets scheduled in two days for the Ospreys.<\/p>\n
“I’m happy the way we competed, we’re coming off a couple really good days of training,” said Head Coach Ian Coffey. “We were up against some really good competition in FGCU and I’m confident we’ll continue to get better.”<\/p>\n
Sophomore Angel Morrison was the team’s lone event winner, touching the wall first in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 1:03.04. She came into the meet with the 16th fastest time in the conference this season in the 50 backstroke when she swam a time of 28.29 in the Oct. 16 tri-meet with West Florida and Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n
Freshmen Chase Walker and Taylor Schmidinger gave the Ospreys seven points with second and third place finish in the 50 freestyle. Walker was just out-touched by FGCU’s Sara Hamilton and recorded a time of 25.30. Schmidinger was right behind her with a time of 25.65.<\/p>\n
North Florida got another solid performance out of junior Amy Taylor who swam the fastest 200 freestyle time of the season this morning with a time of 1:54.44. Today’s stellar swim helped her move up the CCSA Top 24 times list to number 13.<\/p>\n
The Ospreys nearly turned in the fastest 200 freestyle in the meet’s final event. The four-swimmer combination of Rebeca Bernard, Maria Bernard, Walker and Schmidinger posted a time of 1:41.86, a little under a second under the team’s best time in 2014.<\/p>\n
The two meets are a part of a four-day mini training trip designed by Coffey to help North Florida prepare CCSA Championships in mid-February. Tomorrow the Ospreys will travel to Miami for a dual meet with Florida International. The meet is scheduled for 11:00 a.m.<\/p>\n