ATLANTA (Dec. 3) – Georgia Tech swimming & diving freshman Shilo Ayalon (Kfar Hanassi, Israel) set his third school record of the season as he swam a 4:31.78 during the 500 yard freestyle preliminary Friday during the first day of the Georgia Fall Invitational at the Gabrielson Natatorium in Athens, Ga. The morning preliminaries were swam in short course yards, while the finals were staged in short course meters.
Seventh-ranked Georgia ended the day in first place in the men’s competiton with 320 points, while No. 11 Tennesse followed in second with 294 points. Clemson was third with 187 points, No. 12 Alabama was fourth with 178 points, Tech was fifth with 126 points and Miami (Fla.) was in sixth with 86 points.
Ayalon placed fourth in the 400 meter freestyle during the finals after swimming a time of 3:57.85. His morning performance broke the previous record of 4:32.49 set by Hank Longmire 500 yard freestyle a year ago in the ACC Championship meet. Earlier this year, Ayalon set new school marks in the 1,000 and 1,650 freestyles. Sophomore Leo Salinas (Monterrey, Mexico) placed sixth in the 400 meter freestyle in a time of 4:00.42.
“We are happy Shilo is continuing his improvement,” said third-year head coach Seth Baron. “We are swimming against our top competiton of the season to date and he was able to keep pace to place in the top four of the finals.”
Sophomore David Laitala (Richardson, Texas) placed seventh in the finals of the 200 meter individual medley with a time of 2:09.49. Freshman diver Ben Dannemann (Tucker, Ga.) was 15th in the 3-meter diving competition with 273.45 points.
Tech’s 400 medley relay A team (Laitala, Tsuji, Nozar, Oliver) placed seventh in a time of 3:51.75, while the B team (Lenyk, Dye, Gersbach, Hersko) was ninth. The Yellow Jacket’s 200 meter freestyle relay A squad (Dye, Oliver, Hersko, Laitala) was eighth in a time of 1:35.67, while the B team (Lenyk, Foster, Nozar, Hunter) was ninth in 1:37.29.
The competition will continue Saturday and Sunday.
