Penn Wins Florida Atlantic University Invite

The Penn women's swimming and diving team started 2009 with a first place finish at the Florida Atlantic University Invitational on Saturday. The all-day event pitted the Quakers against five schools including Ivy opponent Brown. The Red and Blue accumulated 622 points in 16 events to take first place.

The meet also served as a dual meet between Penn and Brown. While the Quakers easily took first in the invitational, the Bears were able to squeeze by the Red and Blue to take the dual meet. The win came down to the final event, the 200 yard freestyle relay, and Brown's relay team took third and fifth place, while Penn swam to a fourth and sixth place finish.

Competing for a second consecutive day, the Florida Atlantic University swim and dive teams finished second at the FAU Invite against a five other schools. The University of Pennsylvania won both competitions comfortably.

As a team the FAU women edged out Brown University for second by only six points. Several of the seniors honored prior to their last home meet responded with event wins and seasonal bests. Senior Lindsey Alexander had a productive day with two second place finishes in the 100 and 200 yard backstroke. Alexander's 2:06.51 in the 200 backstroke was a seasonal best. With the team race for second extremely tight and only two events left, Alexander won the 200 yard IM, with a seasonal best of 2:07.78. Kalina Neal, another senior, swam her best 200 yard breaststroke to place third with a time of 2:26.79. Seniors Nicole Samilo and Jennifer Forcht scored many points with their seasonal bests. Forcht posted a 2:08.41 to finish second in the 200 yard butterfly and Samilo finished fourth in the 500 yard freestyle (5:10.96) and fifth in the 200 yard freestyle (1:55.20). Freshman Jonna Nyback dominated the freestyle events with wins in the 100 (52.95) and 200 (1:53.47), while finishing second in the 50 freestyle with a time of 24.61. Nyback joined seniors Forcht, Stephanie DeRito and Julie Carmigniani on the 200 yard freestyle team and finished second in 1:38.11 in the last event of the day, securing FAU's second place finish.
 

 
    

The men's team put together one of their best collective efforts of the young season. Rick Duran and Michael Shimansky started things off with a one-two finish in the 1,000 yard freestyle race, with Shimansky recording a seasonal best of 9:45.23. Duran came back in the 500 yard freestyle race to hit the pad in fourth. Freshmen Mikolaj Czarnecki and Csaba Pek combined for three event wins. Czarnecki won the 200 yard butterfly with a 1:53.57 while Pek earned his wins in the 200 yard backstroke (1:51.82) and the 200 yard IM (1:54.76). The Owls finished the meet with a solid showing by the 200 yard freestyle team. Evan Boley, Tyler Griffith, Jonathan Van Zee and Anthony Fermin lowered the team's seasonal best time by two seconds with a time of 1:30.42.

The FAU Owls will be back in action on Saturday, January 10 at Florida International University in Miami, FL at 11 a.m. Also competing at the meet will be Big-10 schools Iowa and Purdue.