{"id":602917,"date":"2025-01-03T16:44:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-03T23:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=602917"},"modified":"2025-01-16T12:52:11","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T19:52:11","slug":"florida-women-indiana-men-win-tight-dual-meets-as-bella-sims-owen-mcdonald-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/florida-women-indiana-men-win-tight-dual-meets-as-bella-sims-owen-mcdonald-star\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Women, Indiana Men Win Tight Dual Meets as Bella Sims, Owen McDonald Star"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida Women, Indiana Men Win Tight Dual Meets as Bella Sims, Owen McDonald Star<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Indiana Hoosiers traveled to Gainesville, Fla., on the heels of their winter training trip to race the Gators in a star-powered dual meet. Both the women’s and men’s contests were highly competitive, but Florida came through on the women’s side by a score of 164-136, with 2021 Olympian Bella Sims<\/strong> winning three individual events. For the men, Indiana won 163-137 as transfer\u00a0Owen McDonald<\/strong> won three times.<\/p>\n

The Gator women’s team of\u00a0Catie Choate<\/strong>,\u00a0Anita Bottazzo<\/strong>,\u00a0Olivia Peoples<\/strong> and\u00a0Micayla Cronk<\/strong> edged out the Hoosiers to win the 200 medley relay by three hundredths. Florida clocked 1:38.84 as Cronk held off the surging 21.61 anchor split from Indiana’s\u00a0Kristina Paegle<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Florida’s Michaela Mattes<\/strong> took first in the 1000 freestyle, overcoming a deficit of more than a second in the final 100 yards to edge out the Indiana veteran duo of\u00a0Mariah Denigan<\/strong> (9:46.04) and\u00a0Ching Hwan Gan<\/strong> (9:46.32).\u00a0Bella Sims<\/strong> took first in the 100 backstroke (52.07). and Bottazzo won the 100 breaststroke (1:00.63). Freshman Addison Reese<\/strong> took first in the 200 butterfly (1:59.01), with teammate\u00a0Lainy Kruger<\/strong> making it a 1-2 finish (1:59.46).<\/p>\n

Sims completed the backstroke sweep with a comfortable win over 200 yards (1:54.77), followed by freshman\u00a0Gracie Weyant<\/strong> winning the 200 breast (2:13.33).\u00a0Emma Weyant<\/strong>, Gracie’s older sister and a two-time Olympian, clocked 4:44.32 for the win in the 500 free. Sims took her third win of the day in the 100 fly (52.84).<\/p>\n

The team of Sims, Reese, Kruger and Cronk won the 400 free relay in 3:18.63, with Cronk splitting 48.68 to hold off Indiana’s charging veteran\u00a0Anna Peplowski<\/strong>, who came home in 48.21.<\/p>\n

Peplowski won the 200 free for Indiana in 1:44.78, and she returned to top the 100 free in 48.90. Paegle topped the 50 free (22.34), and Peplowski clocked 1:59.10 to hold off Weyant (1:59.37) in the 200 IM. In diving, Ella Roselli <\/strong>won on 1-meter (297.53) while\u00a0Camyla Monroy<\/strong> topped 3-meter (364.50).<\/p>\n