Nov. 19, 2010
ATLANTA – After day one of the Georgia Tech Invitational at the GT Aquatic Center, Friday, the men’s and women’s swimming teams sit in sixth and fifth place respectively. Seventeen Jackets earned the right to compete in the finals on Friday night as the men combined for 146 points, while the women earned 101 points on the first day of competition.
I am very happy with the way that we competed today,” said head coach Courtney Shealy Hart. ” We went up against some tough competition and raced well. I am looking forward to seeing what Tech can do tomorrow in Day Two of the meet. There were lots of season bests recorded today, and even some career bests.”
The highlight of the night was Garrett Robberson’s third place finish in the 50-Free. Robberson moved himself up two spots from his fifth place preliminary showing to podium with a season best time of 20.32 seconds. Also earning points for the Jackets in the race was Sullivan Lynch who recorded a 20th place showing in 21.52. Following closely behind Lynch were Nigel Plummer and Eric Chiu with 22nd (21.04) and 23rd (21.14) place finishes respectively.
Lexi Weber stood out for the Jackets among the women’s sprinters as she rallied her way up to a seventh place finish in the 50-Free with a career best showing touching the wall in 23.25 seconds. Jessie Mason also tallied some points for the lady Jackets with her 23.78 second, 18th place finish. Keren Siebner was just out of the top-20 finishing in 21st place with a time of 23.58 seconds.
Also excelling on the day was freshman Anton Lagerqvist who took sixth in both the preliminaries and finals of the 200-IM finishing the day with a best time of 1:51.86.
With a fifth place showing (326.35) in the preliminaries of the 1-meter dive, Brandon Makinson earned a spot in the finals where he tallied a score of 315.75 for a seventh place overall finish putting 18 points on the board for the Jackets. Despite not earning a spot in the finals, both Chris Khosravi also earned points for Georgia Tech on the day with a 15th (284.90) place finish.
“Brandon was consistent throughout the whole meet for us,” said head diving coach John Ames. “I wouldn’t say that he had a career best day but he was very consistent throughout which gave him a good shot in the finals. Chris was also consistent but had one bad dive that knocked him out of contention.”
On the women’s side of things, Ashley Hardy and Sarah Roethel had a tougher go on the day. Hardy, nearly missed the board in one of her early dives and never fully recovered coming in 29th place in the field of 35 with a final score of 198.55. Roethel rounded out the pack of 35 with a 157.35 point showing on the day.
“Ashley had trouble with one of her dives where she almost fell off the side of the diving board and couldn’t do the dive. That really hurt her today, but other than that she was steady the rest of the way. When you miss one dive among the tough competition that we have in here this weekend it is really hard to come back from. “
Georgia Tech’s relay teams showed well at the meet as both the men and women finished fifth in the 200-Free Relay. The men’s team, comprised of Plummer, Lynch, Eric Chiu and Robberson came in with a time of 1:22.14 while the women’s team of Weber, Mason, Kate Riley and Siebner earned a time of 1:33.25.
The Tech women also took fifth in the 400-Medley, finishing in 3:46.21 while the men took sixth with a time of 3:23.40.
The meet continues tomorrow at the GT Aquatic Center as the 400-IM will kick off the day.
REMINDER- if you are attending the meet you will not be able to drive through campus due to the football game. First come, first serve in the parking decks and there will be NO in-and-outs at the deck. To get to the GT Aquatic Center take Northside Drive or North Ave. to Tech Parkway.
