THE FLATS – The Georgia Tech swimming and diving team knocked off #23/- Florida State and #-/20 South Carolina on Friday to punch its ticket to the Dual Meet Tournament championship meet.
WAVE 1 FIRST ROUND
GEORGIA TECH 429, (#23/-) FLORIDA STATE 358
The tournament began with the Jackets squaring off against conference foe Florida State and the home squad went straight to work. Tech opened with a 400 free relay sweep to set the tone as freshman James Sorensen flew in the 100 back race at 46.66 to win the event and secure the fifth-fastest program time.
Fifth-year transfer Ella Flowers and Zara Masud secured sub-two-minute 200 fly times as Flowers finished with a 1:58.98 to record the seventh fastest mark for the program. Berk Ertürk swam 1:44.21 in the men’s 200 fly in a second-place effort.
Tech’s freshmen class has continued to make waves as Meriç Uygun and Kerem İlyem swept the 200 breast events with lightning-fast times. Uygun hit the wall at 2:09.60, swimming 1.48 seconds below the NCAA standard time and setting the second-fastest program time in just her second competitive meet.
She also set the third-fastest program time in the 200 IM at 1:59.67, becoming only the sixth Tech swimmer under 2 minutes. İlyem recorded a 1:53.44 time, 0.62 seconds below the men’s NCAA standard time and recorded the third-fastest program time.
Tech rattled off four more swimming event wins along with three diving event wins to run away with the contest and secure the team victory at 429-358. The men’s final score saw Tech win 221-173, notching its first ranked win of the season over the No. 23 squad in the nation.
WAVE 1 FINAL
GEORGIA TECH 396, (#-/20) SOUTH CAROLINA 376
Tech was tasked with South Carolina in the wave 1 final after the Gamecocks had defeated Minnesota in their opening meet. SC took control early winning four of the first five events, Tech’s relay win on the men’s side coming by virtue of a disqualification.
Brodie Johnson broke the run with a career-best swim in the 100 fly, coming in at 46.98. Uygun and İlyem responded by sweeping the 100 breast races, both securing top-10 program marks. Tech also handled its business on the boards as Max Fowler swept the men’s 1M and 3M dives to tack on more points.
South Carolina swept both the 200 and 500 free races to grow its lead just before the Jackets responded with a 50 free sweep which included Leo Verschooten’s monster time of 19.59. Uygun swam even faster than her first 200 IM race of the day at 1:59.21 as Anthony Rulkowski and İlyem went 1-2 in the men’s race.
The contest would be decided on the 200 medley relay, an event Tech dropped both races to Florida State in the previous meet. Vivien Rothwell put Tech ahead on the opening leg before Zara Masud inched just ahead of SC before the final leg. Jillian Ferrari swam 0.04 seconds faster than the final Gamecock to win the race.
The final race saw both Tech relay teams finish 1-2 ahead of South Carolina to shut the contest down and clinch the wave final. Tech will await the winner of Auburn and Kentucky for the championship meet to close out the second edition of the Dual Meet Tournament tomorrow at 4 p.m.
Full Steam Ahead
Full Steam Ahead is a $500 million fundraising initiative to achieve Georgia Tech athletics’ goal of competing for championships at the highest level in the next era of intercollegiate athletics. The initiative will fund transformative projects for Tech athletics, including renovations of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field (the historic home of Georgia Tech football), the Zelnak Basketball Center (the practice and training facility for Tech basketball) and O’Keefe Gymnasium (the venerable home of Yellow Jackets volleyball), as well as additional projects and initiatives to further advance Georgia Tech athletics through program wide-operational support. All members of the Georgia Tech community are invited to visit atfund.org/FullSteamAhead for full details and renderings of the renovation projects, as well as to learn about opportunities to contribute online.
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