RESULTS
MELBOURNE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern University swimming and diving teams posted a split in their dual meet at Florida Tech on Saturday, with the women winning handily, 145-60, and the men edged out by the slimmest of margins, 104-103.
The top swimmers on the day for the teams were
Emma Wahlstrom (So., Stockholm, Sweden) and
Georgina Allin (So., Somerset, England) on the women's side, each picking up two individual wins (and Wahlstrom adding a relay victory), while for the men,
Anton Lobanov (Fr., Novosibirisk, Russia) and
Thiago Sickert (So., Vila Velha, Brazil) each won two events and were part of a winning relay squad, while Marco Adalbe (So., Alicante, Spain) won one race and two relays.
Each side notched a victory in their opening event, the 400-yard medley relay.
Courtney DeVeny (Fr., Estero, Fla.),
Malin Westman (Fr., Harryda, Sweden),
Arianna Sunyak (Sr., Naples, Fla.) and
Jordan Shows (Fr., Alta Loma, Calif.) defeated their FIT counterparts by more than five seconds, while for the men, Aldabe, Lobanov,
Santiago Pombo (Sr., Bogota, Colombia) and
Michael Ragan (So., Dagula, Georgia) won by a nearly three-second margin.
Madison Yelle (Fr., Mansfield, Texas) picked up an individual victory in the 1,650-yard freestyle, at 18:15.58. Her teammate,
Brie Campbell (Jr., East Sandwich, Mass.) easily took second in the event.
The women took 1-3 in the 200-yard freestyle, with Allin barely outdistancing Westman, 1:57.22 to 1:57.44, and
Alexis Diaz (Fr., Summerfield, Fla.) coming in third. Sickert gained his first first-place finish on the men's side in the same race with a time of 1:40.06.
Similarly for the women, they were the top three finishers in the 50-yard freestyle: Wahlstrom at 24.64,
Emma Lawrenz (Sr., Minnetonka, Minn.) at 24.81 and DeVeny at 25.63.
Bryndis Hansen (So., Akureyri, Iceland) easily paced the field in the 200-yard individual medley, winning by 4.99 seconds over the runner-up, 2:10.32 to 2:15.31. Lobanov edged his FIT opponent 1:57.35 to 1:57.61 to take first place as well.
Lawrenz had the fastest time in the 100-yard butterfly (59.85) as the only female under the one minute mark, with Wahlstrom gaining her second individual win in the 100-yard freestyle (53.41). Sickert got his second as well in that same event at 45.21, and Adalbe's first individual victory came in the 100-yard backstroke (52.16).
Allin and Yelle continued the female Sharks' successes in distance events with a 1-2 showing in the 500-yard freestyle, in 5:18.08 and 5:22.33, respectively. Also on the women's side, Westman and Hansen had the two best times in the 100-yard backstroke (1:07.25 and 1:08.17), with Lobanov picking up the win in the men's race, 55.79 to 59.27 by the FIT runner-up.
As it began, both squads wrapped up the day with relay victories. In the 400-yard women's freestyle, it was Walhstrom, Hansen,
Brooke Munion (So., Bethlehem, Pa.) and Lawrenz by nearly six seconds, and the men took theirs by 1:48, with the combination of Aldabe, Sickert,
Javier Caballero (So., Pamplona, Spain) and
Shane Kleinbeck (Sr., San Antonio, Texas).
The Sharks will take the next few weeks to prepare for the Sunshine State Conference Finals, beginning on Thursday, February 19th.
