Swimming news: First meet season in Virginia
The men’s and women’s swimming and diving squads travelled to Virginia this Saturday to contend the first competition of the season against the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech. The Tigers finished in the third place in the overall rankings of both
the men’s and women’s races. This achievement made the team land in the top 10 finish.
The men of The Tigers were ranked #25 in the country with a total point score of 478.5. On the other hand the team No. 8 Virginia were the winners with 885 points, meanwhile the team No. 23 Virginia Tech was placed second with 695 points.
Sophomore Kaspar Raigla told the correspondents, “We just came back from an intense fall training trip, so we were not expecting to have personal bests.” She added, “We know where we are now and how much we have to improve.”
The top players of The Tigers included the junior swimmers Colin Cordes and Jon Christensen. Cordes had 4 top 10 finishes along with two third place finishes in the team relay events. Meanwhile, Christensen also made it to four top 10 finishes. He also had
two fifth place finishes in the medley starts and one third place finish. Moreover, he also claimed the first place finish in the men’s 100 metre breaststroke. This win was tied with that of the Virginia swimmer Taylor Grey.
In the 200 metre freestyle relay event, the senior swimmer Geoff Faux, sophomore Andres Tung, junior Matt LaMonaca and sophomore Will Lawley took the fourth place. The positions were occupied by these swimmers two seconds behind the Virginia squad who finished
second. While in the 50 metre freestyle race, Cordes was the eighth place finisher and Faux followed him at the 10th spot out of 32 contenders of the event.
In the 200 metre individual medley event, Christensen grabbed the second place. This was a close second place finish, as he was only 0.12 seconds behind Virginia’s Grey. He then went on to contend the 400 metre medley relay along with his team members Cordes,
Faux and senior Brett Lullo. The squad of four people clinched the fifth position in the meet in a time of 3 minutes and 22.82 seconds.
On the second day of the competition, Christensen, Lullo and Faux along with Raigla, once again bagged the fifth position in the 200 metre medley relay. The Ivy League backstroke champion took the 10th place in the 100 metre backstroke event in
a time of 51.96, last season.
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