Nova Southeastern
On Tuesday night, the Nova Southeastern University men's and women's swimming teams closed out the final day of the Fourth Annual NSU Sharks Invitational to bring 2013 competition to an end. The Sharks women finished fourth out of 10 teams with 804.5 points, while the men's team finished third with 1,087.5 points.
NSU senior Oscar Aldabe (Alicante, Spain) was awarded the Michael D. Fish Top Male Performer award for accumulating the most individual points throughout the meet. He finished with 110 total points, 11 points ahead of second place. Florida International's Sonia Perez was the top female performer in the meet earning 149 total points, 37 more than second place.
The Tampa women finished as the top team with 1,340 points to win the Top Team Award. They were followed by second-place Florida International (1,213) and Florida Southern (1,192) finished third. Nova Southeastern (804.5) finished fourth. The Spartan men (1,718.5) finished with the most points to pace the eight-team men's field. They were followed by Florida Southern (1,386.5), Nova Southeastern (1,087.5) and Florida Tech (659.5).
Throughout the final night of competition, NSU recorded several NCAA provisional qualifying times. Sammy Akoubian (Sr., Run Dacula, Ga.) started things off for the Sharks with a sixth-place finish in the 1,650-yard freestyle with a provisional time of 17:35.12. Addison Cates (Jr., Port Charlotte, Fla.) followed on the men's side with a provisional time of 16:06.63 and a fourth-place finish in the same event.
Esau Simpson (Sr., St. David's, Grenada) continued the trend with a ninth-place finish in the men's 100-yard freestyle with a provisional time of 45.93.
Later in the evening, Florida Southern's Thomas Nguyen recorded the only NCAA automatic qualifying time of the night in the men's 200-yard backstroke. He finished first with a time of 1:45.70 to qualify for nationals and set a new Shark Invitational meet record in the event. Marco Aldabe (Fr., Alicante, Spain) finished fourth in the same event with a provisional time of 1:48.37.
In the 200-yard breaststroke, NSU had two provisional qualifiers. Ashley Bransford (Sr., Santa Cruz, Aruba) finished third with a time of 2:21.60, while Oscar Aldabe finished second on the men's side with a time of 2:04.61.
NSU closed out the competition with another pair of NCAA provisional qualifying times, this time in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Emma Lawrenz (Jr., Minnetonka, Minn.), Brooke Munion (Fr., Bethlehem, Pa.), Alexandra Zatylny (Sr., Quebec, Canada) and Laura Gutierrez (Fr., Valencia, Spain) combined for a fourth-place finish in the women's event with a time of 3:31.91. On the men's side, Marco Aldabe, Shane Kleinbeck (Jr., San Antonio, Texas), Magnus Lundgren (Jr., Stockholm, Sweden) and Simpson also finished fourth with a provisional time of 3:01.20.
The Sharks return after the winter break in 2014 to finish off the regular season competition beginning with their first spring meet against Florida Southern on Jan. 11 at 2 p.m. in Lakeland, Fla.
Florida Tech
Florida Tech concluded the Shark Invitational on Tuesday with the 20th-ranked men finishing fourth and the 25th-ranked women placing eighth at the NSU Aquatic Center.
The men totaled 659.5 points, which were 292.5 more points than fifth-place Saint Leo. Eighth-ranked Tampa won the four-day invitational with 1,178.5 points and top-ranked Florida Southern was the runner-up at 1,386.5 points.
On the women’s side, Saint Leo edged the Panthers out for seventh place by just a half of a point, 144.5-144. Eleventh-ranked Tampa completed the sweep, beating out NCAA Division I Florida International 1,340-1,213.
The women set four program records on the last day. Carmen Montalvo shattered her personal best and the program’s previous mark in the 1,650-yard freestyle by more than 31 seconds. She swam the race in a time of 18:06.27 for 17th place. In late October, she clocked in at 18:37.61.
Lauren Suarez set a new FIT women’s best in the 100-yard freestyle, finishing at 53.43 for second place in the ‘B’ Final. Bernie Murphy came in 10th at 54.55.
Julie Coen grabbed sixth overall in the ‘A’ Final of the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 2:09.34. Her record time was more than five seconds faster than the previous clip, held by Faryn Duff since Oct. 18.
In the final women’s race, Suarez, Murphy, Shelby Pearce and Liana Soileau swam the 400-yard freestyle relay at a new program mark of 3:42.51 for 17th-place. Coming in 23rd was a second relay team of Willa Huddleston, Kristen Jones, Madison Hart and Rachel Barczyk.
Takashi Worrell and Ferruccio Rossi finished sixth and seventh, respectively, in the opening men’s race, the 1,650-yard freestyle. Worrell stopped the clock at a program best 16:08.25 to earn his second ‘B’ cut in as many days. Rossi’s time was 16:10.95. Matt Colvin rounded out the top 10 at 16:24.65.
The Panthers also finished consecutively in the 200-yard backstroke ‘A’ Final where Tyler Phelps snatched ninth and Adrien Hosking was the 10th swimmer to touch the timing pad. Phelps’ time was 1:56.20 and Hosking’s was 1:57.66.
Brian Dumont, Camden Johnston and Stuart Jamieson all raced in the ‘A’ Final of the 200-yard breastroke. Dumont led FIT with a fourth-place finish at 2:07.79. Johnston was seventh at 2:09.63 and Jamieson was ninth at 2:10.74.
Victor Westerlund, Logan Szarka, Jonah Rieman and Nir Barnea placed in the top 10 in the last men’s event, the 400-yard relay. They clocked in at 3:09.23 for seventh place out of 23 teams.
FIT will enjoy a two-week break before returning to action on New Year’s Day to host Lewis University at 11 a.m. at the Panther Aquatic Center. Admission is free.
