The first day of the 2015 SEC Swimming & Diving Championships lived up to the hype, with school, and conference, records falling left-and-right, and some of the fastest splits in relay history at any meet going up on the board.
The scores after day 1:
Men
- Auburn – 177
- Tennessee – 164
- Georgia – 146
- South Carolina – 140
- Missouri – 132
- Texas A&M – 127
- Alabama – 121
- Florida – 119
- LSU – 114
- Kentucky – 98
Women
1. LSU – 164
2. Georgia – 148
3. Kentucky – 144
4. Florida – 140
5. Missouri – 137
6. Texas A&M – 132
7. South Carolina – 120
T-8. Alabama – 105
T-8. Auburn – 105
10. Tennessee – 104
11. Arkansas – 103
12. Vanderbilt – 60
Early scores are being heavily influenced by the impact of diving, so expect the LSU women, for example, to fall off the pace when day two picks up.
Tennessee has the hot-hand early, after winning the meet’s first three events. Peter John Stevens led the Tennessee medley relay with a 22.72 split, which is the fastest we can find, and their women’s team got a great breaststroke split from Molly Hannis, which while not the fastest, is one of the better breaststroke splits in history.
The A&M women had good results early as well, with runner-up finishes in both of the day’s relay. We also believe based on early research that Beryl Gastaldello’s 22.46 fly split on their medley relay is the fastest ever by a woman (legally), but we’re working on verifying that.
The Alabama Crimson Tide were the breakout team at last year’s SEC Championship meet (and NCAA Championship for that matter), and they’re on a roll again this year. They’ve already broken four school records on one day, which includes clearing the mark for the women’s 800 free relay by eight seconds.
Among the teams that slid on the day include the Missouri women, who were seeded to earn 104 swimming points on the day but only wound up with 92. They still did what they needed to secure their NCAA relay berths, however, so that won’t be too much of a letdown.
Other big stories include the success of the underrated South Carolina diving crew, whose men’s and women’s group both had success; and the Georgia freshmen divers, who took 3rd on the men’s side (Ian Forlini) and 1st on the women’s side (Olivia Ball).
The Florida men had a mixed-bag of relays. Their 200 medley showed that they’re not quite as versatile as they used to be. They placed 5th by shifting Caeleb Dressel to the fly leg and Corey Main to the freestyle leg, but that hurt them on their opening backstroke leg. They also, however, showed that their middle distance freestyle group is one of the deepest in the country – they broke the SEC Record even with three new faces on the relay from last year’s meet. Florida head coach Gregg Troy would acknowledge that he would’ve liked a little better result out of his “short relays,” and that he was happy with the swims, but just wanted a little more out of some touches.
The separation in this meet will really start to occur with individual events on day 2. Those events will include the men’s and women’s 500 frees; the men’s and women’s 200 IMs; the men’s and women’s 50 frees; the women’s 1-meter diving; and the men’s and women’s 200 free relays.