The Alabama Swimming and Diving teams’ veterans rose to the occasion on Senior Day at the Don Gambril Aquatic Center with some tremendous swims against Florida and South Carolina in front of a near capacity crowd this afternoon.

“I was proud of how our seniors went out there and competed,” head coach Eric McIlquham said. “On the men’s side we are a senior laden team and it showed. We led Florida, one of the nation’s top ranked teams, with four events to go. In the end we just didn’t have the depth to finish it out, but we got some tremendous swims.”

Alabama’s men beat the Gamecocks 163-137 and fell to the Gators 172-128. Florida beat South Carolina 190-109.

“Our women are very, very young and I think you saw some of that today,” McIlquham said. “But they are improving and getting better and most importantly building toward the team we want to be.”

On the women’s side, Alabama fell to Florida 181-119 and was out touched by the Gamecocks 154-146. Florida upended South Carolina 176.5-123.5.

Not only was this the Crimson Tide’s last home meet of the season, it was also the close of the regular season. Alabama opens up the postseason with the Southeastern Conference Championships starting Feb. 2 in Lexington, Ky.

“We still have some things to work on before conference,” McIlquham said. “Little things that will help us in the big meets like getting in and out of walls better; things like that. That’s what we’ll work on in the next few weeks before leave for SECs.”

Alabama started the meet off with a dominating win in the 400 medley relay, with sophomore Chris Perry, senior Vlad Polyakov, freshman Alin Mihalca and senior Apostolis Tsagkarakis posting a 3:17.67 and bettering the rest of the field by more than two seconds.

The senior breaststroke duo of Polyakov and Hunor Mate’ was lethal, taking commanding wins in both the 100 and 200. Polyakov posted a 54.01 to win the 100 breaststroke followed by Mate’s 54.97 which was more than a second ahead of third place. In the 200 breaststroke, Polyakov won with a 1:57.63 while Mate’ took second with a 1:58.71.

Tsagkarakis posted a blistering 20.10 in the 50 freestyle, bettering his nearest competitor by nearly a full second. He came back just a few events later to win the 100 freestyle by a similar margin with a 45.30. Mihalca gave the Tide a sweep of the sprint freestyle events, winning the 200 freestyle with a 1:40.80, beating Florida’s Tim Hughes to the wall by 9/100ths of a second.

For the women, senior Victoria Genova closed out Alabama Aquatic Center career with a win in the 200 butterfly, touching at 2:02.09. It wasn’t all senior power though; freshman Agustina de Giovanni won the 200 freestyle with a 1:50.00 and the 500 freestyle by more than two seconds with a 4:55.56.