The
University of Florida women’s swimming and diving team collected 27
All-American honors, brought home it’s first individual NCAA title since 2010
and finished 10th in the field with
160 points to finish the 2011-12 season. The 10th-place
finish marks the 11th consecutive year that Florida has posted a
top-1o finish at the NCAA Championships, and the 12th time in head
coach Gregg Troy’s 14-year helm of
the program.
After the
night was finished, Troy explained that his team “Came back
strong after a fairly disappointing first day. We got a lot of makeshift relays
with a lot of people at the blocks throughout the entire meet.”
“We showed a lot of pride with the way we swam, tonight, and
throughout this whole three-day venture that we have been on. We had one of the
best performances tonight, where we were put in a situation where we had to fight
and come back from adversity – that speaks in and of itself about our
team this year.
“Depth-wise we weren’t necessarily all eight cylinders with
the team throughout the meet, but we managed to finish in the top-10 which is
always a goal for our team at the end of the year.”
The story
of the night comes from sophomore Elizabeth
Beisel (North Kingstown, R.I.) who clocked a 1:50.58, the 15th-fastest
time ever, to put the 200 dorsal title back in the hands of a swimmer donning
the Orange and Blue for the first time since Gator Gemma Spofforth won three
straight titles from 2007-09. She joins the likes of fellow UF Alumni, Kristen
Linehan who won the title in back-to-back years, 1989 and 1990.
Beisel’s
top-podium finish brings Florida it’s sixth title in the event, second
nationally behind Texas who owns seven 200 back titles to their name. With the
win, she also becomes the first SEC athlete to win the title since Spofforth
claimed the title in three consecutive years
