ATLANTA (oct. 12) – Georgia Tech’s men’s swimming & diving team will host its second home meet of the year Saturday as it welcomes Florida State and NC State at noon to the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center (2,100) for an Atlantic Coast Conference tri-meet. The Yellow Jackets are coming off of a 128-113 victory against Virginia Tech last Saturday to open the 1999-2000 campaign.
“These two opponents are definitely our toughest two on the schedule, so we will have to be ready from the start of the meet,” said third-year head coach Seth Baron. “Florida State was second and NC State was fourth in the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship meet last year, so we will need to be as competitive, if not more so than last week against Virginia Tech.”
Tech’s win was keyed by sophomore David Laitala (Richardson, Texas) who won the 200 Individual Medley in 1:55.60, the 200 Butterfly in 1:54.00 and keyed the 400 Medley Relay “A” team to a victory. Freshman Shilo Ayalon (Kfar Hanassi, Israel) had a big start for Tech as he won the 1,000 freestyle in both pool and school record times of 9:28.96. He bested freshman teammate James Salazar (Huntsville, Ala.), who placed second in 9:44.07. Ayalon also won the 500 freestyle by over seven seconds in a pool-record time of 4:39.35. Salazar had a strong start as he won the 200 backstroke in a pool record time of 1:53.72. Freshman Tomonori Tsuji (Osaka, Japan) etched a new pool record as he won the 200 breaststroke in 2:08.93. Freshman Jorge Oliver (Jacksonville, Fla.) also captured a first place as he won the 100 freestyle in 47.62 seconds.
Overall for the meet, Tech’s freshmen class registered five first-place finishes, four second-place finishes, plus four pool and one school record.
