The University of Florida men’s swimming and diving team topped intrastate rival Florida State by a score of 173-123 on Tuesday night. The Gator women defeated Florida State 166-130.

The Gators men captured 12 of the 16 event titles and won its eighth straight dual meet dating back to Jan. 24, 2004, when Florida defeated Southeastern Conference-foe Alabama 135-94 at the O’Connell Center. Florida now 6-0 overall, is off to its best start under Head Coach Gregg Troy, and its best overall start since the 1994-95 season. With the win over the Seminoles, the Gators have won eight straight over their rivals and now hold a 46-21-1 mark all-time against Florida State.

The Gator women swept 10 of the 16 events and finished in the top two spots in seven of the events. The No. 3 CSCAA ranked Gators now move to 4-1 in dual-meet action and 1-1 in the Southeastern Conference.

Leading the Gator men was the trio of freshman Darian Townsend (Montrose, South Africa), junior Nick Borreca (Honolulu, Hawaii) and sophomore Bill Mrazek (Tallahassee, Fla.). Townsend was unbeaten on the day as he recorded three first-place finishes in the 400-yard freestyle relay, 200-yard freestyle (1:38.83) and 100-yard freestyle (45.00 seconds). Borreca and Mrazek each addded two wins and a second-place finish to give the Gators seven of their 12 events titles. The duo teamed up with Townsend and senior Kris Wiebeck (Tampa, Fla.) to win the 400 freestyle relay, while Borecca went on to win the 50-yard freestyle in 20.88 seconds and finish second in the 100-yard butterfly in a time of 49.59 seconds. Mrazek claimed the 200-yard breaststroke in a clocking of 2:02.72, while turning in a time of 57.48 seconds to place second in the 100-yard breaststroke.

In addition to swimming a leg on the winning 400-yard freestyle team, Wiebeck took second in the 200-yard backstroke in a time of 1:48.58 behind teammate Brain Hartely (Indianapolis, Ind.), while finishing third in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 51.49 seconds.

Hartley, who won the 200-yard backstroke in a time of 1:48.23, also claimed the 100-yard backstroke title in a clocking of 50.73 seconds.

The Gators added two event sweeps in the meet, the first coming in the 200-yard butterfly when the quartet of J.B. Walsh (Virginia Beach, Va.), Tim Hughes (Winter Park, Fla.) Grant Wiezorek (Carmel, Ind.) and Tobias Work (Falmouth Mass.) claimed the first four places and then later the Gators snagged the first three spots courtesy of the trio of Albert Medrano (Sabadell, Spain), Max Jaben (Overland Park, Kansas) and Matt Coan (Plantation, Fla.) in the 500-yard freestyle.

In the 1000-yard freestyle Florida claimed the top two spots as the duo of Scott Kaufmann (Sparks, Nev.) and Work recorded times of 9:17.73 and 9:19.22 respectively .

Florida divers continue to perform well as Vitor Assuncao (Orlando, Fla.) won both the one and three-meter springboard events with scores of 284.18 and 312.15, while senior Zach Wilcox (Yarrow Point, Wash.) totaled 277.88 points to finish second in the one-meter event.

In the women's 1,000-yard freestyle event, sophomore Katie Ball (Cincinnati, Ohio) won top honors with her time of 9:55.24. In second place, senior Meredith Green (Chapel Hill, N.C.) finished with a 10:06.62 effort. Finishing one, two in the 200 free was sophomore and All-American Leah Retrum (Columbus, Ind.) and freshman Natalie Pike (Boca Raton) who touched the wall in 1:50.78 and 1:50.85, respectively. Pike topped her season best in the 200 free by one-hundredth of a second. Freshman Kim Larson (Longwood) also competed in the event and took fourth with a time of 1:54.46.

Taking first in the 100 back was freshman Samantha Vanderbilt (Nashville, Tenn.) who swam the race in 57.53. On her heels and a tenth of a second behind, sophomore Jamie Reid (Orlando) clocked the swim in 57.63. Placing first for Florida in the 100-yard breaststroke was junior and Olympian Vipa Bernhardt (Bad Hersfeld, Germany) with a 1:02.72 pool performance, a NCAA 'B' qualifying time and a new season high for the junior. Also in the race were freshmen Amanda Hartley (Tallahassee) and Ingrid Haiden (Cape Town, South Africa) with times of 1:05.68 (third-place) and 1:07.95 (fourth-place).

One, two again for the Gators was senior Rebecca Harper (Richmond, Va.) and sophomore Ashley Carusone (High Springs) with the top-two times of 2:01.91 and 2:05.80, respectively. Taking second in the women's 50-yard fly was senior Maureen Farrell (Northridge, Calif.) who clocked 23.89 in the event. Farrell also finished second in the 100 free (51.48).

In the 200 back event, Reid captured first with her swim time of 2:02.61 while senior Katie McCann (Walpole, Ma.) bested her season top-time with a second-place clocking of 2:02.66. Taking the title in the breaststroke against was Bernhardt, touching the wall in 2:22.07, just in front of teammates Hartley (2:23.99) and Haiden (2:24.02). Sophomore distance free swimmer, Ball, shined again with her 4:52.50 win in the 500-yard free. Green finished third in the race (4:57.64), while Carusone took fifth (5:02.47).

Claiming her second title of the night, Harper clocked 56.23 in the 100 fly for a first-place showing and the best performance in the 100 fly so far this season. Bernhardt and Retrum also competed in the event and finished in third and fourth places with times of 56.34 and 56.75, respectively.

First through third place in the 200 IM belong to the Orange and Blue. McCann took home the gold with a 2:03.95 effort in the IM, while Katie Kennedy (Ft. Myers) claimed second place, clocking 2:06.61. On their heels, Pike owned third with a 2:08.14 showing. The relays for UF faired just as well as the rest of the meet. The team of Retrum, Bernhardt, Harper and Farrell finished the 400-medley relay in second place (3:48.50), while in the 400-free relay, Farrell, Pike, Carusone and Retrum finished with the second-best clocking of 3:27.11.

"We left some people at home this meet due to classes and the flu," Troy said. "But we will be competing soon at Georgia Tech and we are trying to get everyone rested and ready for that."