ATLANTA (March 3) – The 24th-ranked Georgia Tech men’s swim team competed at the Auburn Last Chance Meet on March 3, with the meet being one of the final chances to qualify for the NCAA Swimming Championships.
The Yellow Jackets recorded a pair of NCAA provisional qualifying times in the meet, along with recording a number of top-seven finishes.
Tech’s first swimmer to record a “B” cut at the meet was junior David Laitala, who swam a 48.79 second time in the preliminaries of the 100-yard butterfly. Laitala later finished third in the final heat with a time of 48.88. Rookie Itai Eden was sixth in the final heat with his time of 50.39 seconds, while Jorge Oliver finished seventh in a time of 50.30.
Leo Salinas was the next Tech swimmer to record a “B” time, as he was second in the 1650-yard freestyle with a time of 15:30.84. He was followed in the event by Eduardo Oliver, who placed fourth with a time of 15:42.94, and Hank Longmire in sixth at 16:11.01.
The Jackets’ final top-five finisher of the day was Carl Nylander, who placed fifth in the 400 individual medley with a time of 4:00.31.
Tech will now focus its attention on the NCAA Championships which will take place in College Station, Texas from March 22-24.
