Feb. 28, 2002
ATLANTA– – Led by all-Atlantic Coast Conference performances by Shilo Ayalon, David Laitala and Paul McCarty, the Georgia Tech men’s swimming and diving team stands tied for second place after the first day of competition at the ACC Championships at College Park, Md. With 158 points, the Yellow Jackets are tied with North Carolina, 126 points behind leader Virginia and 38 points ahead of fourth place Florida State.
Laitala swam a school-record and NCAA B-cut time of 1:47.98 in the 200 individual medley to finish in second place and earn all-conference honors. He broke the record that he had set earlier in the day in the preliminaries.
Ayalon (4:21.90) and Leo Salinas (4:24.86) bettered the NCAA B-cut standard in the 500 free. Ayalon placed second to earn all-ACC honors, while Salinas was fourth, and teammate Matt Figh finished eighth.
McCarty placed third in the one-meter diving event with a score of 295.20.
Laitala also swam on two Tech relay teams that set school records. The 200 free relay team, which also included Josh Hersko, Mike Comer and Brendan Forbes, finished fifth with a time of 1:22.74, while 400-medley team of James Salazar, Tomonori Tsuji, Laitala and Hersko finished second by shaving more than two seconds off the Tech record with an NCAA B-cut time of 3:16.44.
Also scoring points for the Jackets on day one were Itai Eden (13th) and Eduardo Oliver (15th) in the 500 free, Chris Biedrzycki (10th) in the 200 IM, and Hersko (12th) and Comer (15th) in the 50 free.
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