By David Rieder<\/i><\/p>\n
ATHENS, Georgia, July 16. THE first long course meter final session of the USA Swimming Sectionals held in Athens, Ga., featured a showdown between heavyweight Auburn training partners in the men's 50 free, with Olympic champ Cesar Cielo emerging as the victor. Additionally, Morgan Scroggy and Amanda Weir clocked strong times to win the women's 200 IM and women's 50 free, respectively.<\/p>\n
Cielo clocked 21.73 for the top time in the men's 50, while Bousquet finished second at 22.01. The Auburn teammates, the only men in history to break 21, both finished behind their top times this year, as Cielo is ranked first at 21.55, while Bousquet is second at 21.71. Two more Auburn swimmers rounded out the top four, Tyler McGill (22.78) and Nicholas Santos (22.98).<\/p>\n
Athens Bulldog's Scroggy dominated the 200 IM, posting a 2:13.89 in route to a 3.5 second win. The time moved her tied her with countrywoman Whitney Myers for 23rd in the world. Swim Atlanta's Jana Mangimelli and Scroggy's teammate Chelsea Nauta rounded out the top three, posting respective times of 2:17.39 and 2:19.44.<\/p>\n
Swim Atlanta's Weir, meanwhile, had way too much in the tank for the rest of the field in the women's splash-and-dash. Weir posted a 25.72, more than half a second off her 13th-ranked 25.13 from March. Megan Romano took second in 25.99, while Athens Bulldogs' Lauren English ended up third in 26.02.<\/p>\n
Nauta opened the evening with a dominating win in the women's 800 free. Nauta finished at 8:47.90, well ahead of the 8:54.67 posted by North Carolina's Katura Harvey. Swim Atlanta's Rachael Dudley took third in 8:56.41. Poseidon's Tyler Harris took down Swim Atlanta's Will Freeman in the men's 800 free, clocking 8:16.74, to Freeman's 8:17.02. ASL's Steven Kekacs completed the podium in 8:22.60.<\/p>\n
Athens Bulldogs' Billy Cregar out-dueled Tucson Ford's Darian Townsend to win the men's 200 IM, 2:02.98 to 2:03.25, while Auburn's Kyle Owens finished a close third in 2:03.58.<\/p>\n
GCAT's Patricia Forrester clocked a strong 2:13.58 to take the women's 200 fly, ahead of Marietta Marlins's Courtney Peters, who posted a 2:17.00. Lakeside's Abbie Fish and North Carolina's Laura Ruscoe dead-heated for third with matching 2:17.70s. Auburn's Robert Looney completed the evening's events with a win in the men's 200 fly in a time of 2:01.68, defeating Todd McGraw (2:02.29) and Athens Bulldogs' Mark Dylla (2:03.18).<\/p>\n
Swimming World high school intern David "The Swim Geek" Rieder is a high school swimmer in Charleston, S.C. He swims for the Southern Marlins Racing Team and often negative splits his races. He can be found on the web at swimdr549.blogspot.com and twitter.com\/david2swim.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By David Rieder ATHENS, Georgia, July 16. THE first long course meter final session of the USA Swimming Sectionals held in Athens, Ga., featured a showdown between heavyweight Auburn training<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-usa","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n