The Florida Gulf Coast Eagles may have put the final piece into the puzzle to get their huge breakout season in 2014-2015 with the signing of Junior Colege transfer Rebecca Derogatis. She will come in with two years of eligibility remaining for the Eagles after two years spent at Indian River State College.
Derogatis joins a sprint group that include sub-23 freestyler and NCAA qualifiers Emma Svensson, who will be a senior next year, and Kira Toussaint, who will be a sophomore, as the Eagles now will have all three sub-23 second freestylers in their programs brief history on the same relays.
Derogatis won the NJCAA Junior College National Championship last season in the 50 free with a 22.93. She improved by leaps-and-bounds last season, as that was a full second improvement from her best time as a freshman (23.96).
The Ft. Lauderdale native is fairly limited to the sprint freestyles, with a yards best of 50.78 in the 100. That will be a huge help for the Eagles, who came up just a hair shy of sending their first relays to the NCAA Championships last year (though both Svenssen and Toussaint qualified individually). Head coach Neal Studd’s biggest challenge might be figuring out how to assemble these pieces into the best possible medley relay, as the medley has been the team’s strong suit the past few years.