AUBURN – The first night of the 2015 SEC Championships featured some amazing Tennessee breaststroke splits on the medley relays, as well as some surprising team tallies heading into night two.<\/p>\n
The Auburn men led the way after a strong day of swimming and diving with 177 points, while Tennessee had a career day en route to second with 164 points. \u00a0Georgia rounded out the top three with 146 points.<\/p>\n
For the women, LSU rode a strong diving day with a balanced swimming attack to the lead with 164 points. Georgia, who will start to build on today’s total with a swimming-filled day two, stood second with 148 points. \u00a0Kentucky held third with 144 points.<\/p>\n
Tennessee had a banner night in the medley relays, winning both with what are\u00a0some of the fastest breaststroke splits ever.<\/p>\n
The UT men opened up with Sean Lehane (21.78), Peter Stevens (22.72), Jacob Thulin (20.49) and Troy Tillman (19.10) delivering a blistering time of 1:24.09.<\/p>\n
That’s just a bit off Auburn’s 2009 SEC Meet record of 1:23.69, but was enough to secure the first men’s SEC relay win by Tennessee in more than a decade.<\/p>\n
Stevens’ breaststroke split is the fastest in history, beating the previous mark of 22.83 by Damir Dugonjic for California at the Pac 10 Championships in 2009.<\/p>\n
Alabama’s Connor Oslin (21.11), Pavel Romanov (23.82), Luke Kaliszak (20.42) and Brett Walsh (19.08) chased down second-place honors in 1:24.43, while Georgia’s Taylor Dale (21.26), Nicolas Fink (23.55), Ty Stewart (21.05) and Michael Trice (19.00) placed third.<\/p>\n
Auburn (1:42.91), Florida (1:24.95) and Missouri (1:25.07) all clinched NCAA relays as well with NCAA A cuts.<\/p>\n
The Lady Vols weren’t playing around either as Anna DeMonte (25.11), Molly Hannis (26.06), Harper Bruens (22.61) and Faith Johnson (21.53) smoked the finale in 1:35.31. \u00a0That’s just off the SEC Meet record of 1:35.08 clocked by UT in 2013.<\/p>\n
Only Kasey Carlson has had a faster breaststroke leg that we can find with a 25.70 last year.<\/p>\n
Texas A&M’s Kelli Benjamin (25.03), Sycerika McMahon (27.16), Beryl Gastaldello (22.46) and Sammie Bosma (21.57) clinched second in 1:36.22 with Auburn’s Jillian Vitarius (24.36), Natasha Lloyd (27.72), Megan Fonteno (23.30) and Allyx Purcell (21.32) earning third in 1:36.70.<\/p>\n
The entire top eight cleared the NCAA A cut as Georgia (1:36.88), Florida (1:37.12), LSU (1:37.14), Missouri (1:37.33) and Alabama (1:37.65) have guaranteed their relays spots next month.<\/p>\n
Florida lowered its own SEC meet record in the men’s 800-yard free relay with a scorching anchor by Dan Wallace.<\/p>\n
Pawel Werner (1:33.69), Nicholas Alexiou (1:33.83), Mitch D’Arrigo (1:32.95) and Wallace (1:32.38) pulled away from the pack down the stretch with a 6:12.85 to win the finale.<\/p>\n
Auburn’s Hugo Morris lowered a 1981 Rowdy Gaines school record with a 1:33.39 leadoff as the Tigers’ Morris, Arthur Mendes (1:34.24), Kyle Darmody (1:33.17) and Joe Patching (1:34.34) placed second in 6:15.14.<\/p>\n