Georgia Fall Swimming Invitational Agate
ATLANTA (Dec. 4) – Georgia Tech freshman Tomonori Tsuji (Osaka, Japan) hit the first NCAA provisional mark of the year as he swam a 1:02.67 in the 100 meter breaststroke Saturday at the Georgia Fall Invitational, which is being held at the Gabrielsen Natatorium in Athens, Ga.
The host Bulldogs led the team scoring with 773 after the second day, while Tennessee was in second place with 630.5 points. Alabama was third with 417 points, Miami (Fla.) was fourth with 374.5 points, Clemson was fifth with 364 points and Georgia Tech was sixth with 313 points. The teams swam short-course yards in the morning preliminaries, and swam short-course meters during the night championship round.
Tsuji finished fifth in the 100 breaststroke in a tight race that saw the top five swimmers finish in a span of .29-hundredths of a second. Freshmen Robbie Foster (Frankfort, Ky.) and Ross Dye (Marietta, Ga.) placed seventh and eighth, respectively, while freshman Travis McQuinn (Cyrpress, Texas) was 14th after finishing sixth in the consolation finals.
Freshman Josh Hersko (Marietta, Ga.) placed eighth in the 200 meter freestyle with a time of 1:55.37, however in the 200 yard preliminary, he set a school record with a time of 1:40.63 to break the old mark of 1:41.80 set by Todd Testrake in 1993. Freshman Shilo Ayalon (Kfar Hanassi, Israel) placed fourth in the consolation finals and 12th overall with a time of 1:54.25 to score for the Yellow Jackets.
“Setting two school records and hitting an NCAA provisional mark in two days are very nice accomplishments for us,” said third-year head coach Seth Baron. “We hope to see some more on Sunday to finish up the meet very strong. We are very excited to see some great swimming at this meet, in the middle of season and going to use this meet to set the tone for the second half of the dual-meet season as well as the ACC Championship meet.”
Techs 800 freestyle relay A team placed fourth in the championship finals in a mark of 7:41.21 and knock off top teams from Georgia, Clemson and Miami in the only relay swim of the day.
Sophomore David Laitala (Richardson, Texas) was eighth in the 100 meter butterfly to start the championship round in a time of 56.49 seconds. In the preliminary round, he finished the 100 yard competition in 49.97 seconds, which is the second-best time in Tech history and just .3-hundreths of a second off the top school mark.
Freshman Jorge Oliver (Jacksonville, Fla.) had the top swim for Tech in the 100 meter backstroke as he finished 12th overall and fourth in the consolation finals in 58.12 seconds.
The competiton will conclude Sunday with the preliminary round at 9:30 a.m. and the finals beginning at 3 p.m.
