Photo Credit: South Carolina Athletics
COLUMBIA – The South Carolina women’s swimming and diving team picked up its third dual meet win of the season Friday night after taking down Florida Gulf Coast, 166-131.
South Carolina Press Release
The South Carolina women’s swimming and diving team improves to 3-1 on the season after defeating FGCU 166-131.
After finishing second and third in the 200 medley relay to open the meet, the Gamecocks won the next four events with wins from senior Victoria Mitchell (1000 freestyle), freshman Meredith Vay (200 freestyle), freshman Heather Merritt (100 backstroke) and junior Ellen Johnson (100 breaststroke).
The Gamecocks swept the 200 breaststroke with freshman Kersten Dirrane, Johnson, and freshman Brittany Oxley placing first through third, respectively. Freshman Sarah Smith followed with a win in the 500 freestyle.
Merrit recorded her second win of the meet in the 100 butterfly while Mitchell picked up her second win in the 400 IM.
The Gamecocks swept the diving events with freshman Julia Vincent claiming first place on both the one-meter and the three-meter. Senior Patricia Kranz and junior Lauren Lamendola placed second and third on both boards, respectively, while freshman Marissa Roth finished fifth on the one-meter and fourth on the three-meter.
Key Stat
The Gamecocks won 10 of 16 events
Notables
Vincent posted new career best scores of 377.85 on the three-meter and 326.55 on the one-meter
Smith recorded a new career best time of 10:07.14 in the 1000 freestyle
Merritt’s wins in the 100 backstroke and 100 butterfly were the first of her career
Vay recorded a new career best times of 1:50.06 in the 200 freestyle and 51.08 in the 100 freestyle, her times currently rank first on the team this season
Merritt posted a new career best times of 56.83 in the 100 backstroke and 56.75 in the 100 butterfly, her times currently rank first on the team this season
Johnson’s time of 1:03.34 in the 100 breaststroke is a season best
Vay missed tying her career best time of 23.63 in the 50 freestyle by .01 seconds
Smith posted a career best time of 4:56.22 in the 500 freestyle and recorded her second consecutive win in the event
Taylor Worrell recorded a career best time of 4:58.39 in the 500 freestyle
Kersten Dirrane notched her first college win in the 200 breaststroke
Quotable
Head swimming Coach McGee Moody
“Tonight was the first night we got to race at home. As a program, we’re always better at home than we are on the road and tonight was no different. I think we stepped up in a lot of areas. We had some great, great races from our freshmen. The upper class showed some great leadership. We were pretty much as good as we could have been in just about every event tonight. Florida Gulf Coast is an outstanding women’s program, so I’m proud of our ladies for stepping up and getting it done.”
Head diving coach Todd Sherritt
“I’m overwhelmingly happy with our performance today. We’ve been working on some very specific things and the everyone on the team did almost 100 percent of their objectives. We’re way further along right now than I anticipated. We’re seeing some high numbers. Julia (Vincent) obviously did a great job, 377.85 is a high score. Patty (Patricia Kranz) did really well and Lauren (Lamendola) did some phenomenal dives. My freshman (Marissa Roth), I’m really impressed with her. This was a very good meet for them. They were competing against each other and I really liked that. Overall today was almost a perfect day.”
Up Next
The Gamecocks host East Carolina and College of Charleston on Saturday, Nov. 8 beginning at noon at Carolina Natatorium.
Florida Gulf Coast Press Release
The FGCU swimming & diving team picked up its first loss of the season Friday night against the University of South Carolina, falling 166-131 to the Gamecocks. The loss moves the Eagles to 2-1 on the season and improves South Carolina to 3-1.
On Friday afternoon, CollegeSwimming.com released its first wave of NCAA Division-I Power Rankings, naming FGCU as No. 28, the highest in program history, and South Carolina as No. 27.
“The girls fought hard tonight,” head coach Neal Studd said. “The 11 hour bus trip to Columbia was tough but they had a great attitude and competed with a big SEC program very well.”
The Green and Blue registered six first-place finishes, coming from two winning relays and four individual events. Having another standout night for FGCU was Emma Svensson (Uppsala, Sweden/Celsiusskolan), who swam butterfly for the winning 200-yard medley relay team, finished first individually in both the 50 and 100-yard freestyle and capped the evening as the first leg in the winning 200-yard freestyle relay. Joining Svensson with individual first-place touches were Kira Toussaint (Amstelveen, Netherlands/Keizer Karel College) and Yee Wong (Hong Kong, China/Dlocesan Girls’ School) as FGCU earned seven second-place finishes in Friday’s contest.
For the second-straight week the Eagles swept the relays, winning the 200-yard medley and the 200-yard freestyle. Starting the meet with a victory was the team of Toussaint, Evita Leter (Paramaribo, Suriname/Doral Academy), Svensson and Rebecca Derogatis (Fort Lauderdale, Fla./ Cardinal Gibbons HS/Indian River) winning the 200 medley with a 1:41.99, before Svensson, Derogatis, Sara Hamilton (Stonehaven, Scotland/Mackie Academy) and Kristen Julien (San Fernand, Trinidad and Tobago/St. Stephen’s College) ended the night with a 1:34.33 to win the 200 free.
Svensson turned in a couple of dominant performances racing her signature stroke, touching first in the 50-yard freestyle with a 23.07 and the 100-yard event with a 50.00.
Toussaint continued to shine in backstroke, recording a season low in the 200-yard race (1:58.91) to surpass the 1:59.70 she clocked against Miami, which ranked 39th in the nation.
Freshman Wong won the 200 butterfly for the second-straight meet, this time recording a season-low 2:03.51.
Leading the Green and Blue in the diving well for the fourth time this season was senior Cayla Collins (Largo, Fla./Osceola High School) placing fourth in the 1-meter event, with a 264.23, and fifth on 3-meter with a 282, a score which qualifies for NCAA Zones.
Up next the Eagles will travel to Atlanta for the Georgia Tech Invite, scheduled for Nov. 20-22.
Results: Florida Gulf Coast vs. South Carolina