Florida State vs. Georgia Tech Dual Meet
- November 6, 2020
- Morcom Aquatics Center, Tallahassee, Florida
- Short Course Yards (25 yard) pool
- Results
- Team Scores:
- Georgia Tech Women 176 – Florida State Men 124
- Florida State Men 152 – Georgia Tech Men 147
The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets traveled to Tallahassee, Florida on Friday for an ACC dual meet.
The battle came down to the wire, with the two teams splitting the results as the Georgia Tech women won handily and the Florida State men took a nail-biter, holding on for a 5-point win at the end.
Florida State head coach pointed out that the Seminoles were without about a third of their roster for the meet. While the program declined to elaborate on the reason for those absences, sources tell SwimSwam that those missing athletes are under contact tracing protocols after one member of the team tested positive for coronavirus.
Georgia Tech was also missing a few key swimmers from last year’s roster, but it’s not clear why.
Men’s Meet
The Florida State Seminoles, which has one of the best sprint groups in the country, started out Friday’s meet well enough, going 1-2 in the men’s 200 medley relay. That included a 1:29.01 from their “A” relay. The sprint depth was further emphasized by the fact that Max McCusker, who swam on this relay at last year’s ACC Championships when it placed 2nd, wasn’t in the event on Friday, opting for 3 individuals and the closing 400 free relay instead.
Florida State picked up another 1-2 finish in the men’s 1000 free thanks to freshmen David Quirie (9:25.31) and Zachary Smith (9:25.80). Quirie, in spite of a 9:25 in the 1000 free, swam just 4:41.52 in the 500 free later in the meet to place 11th. The first 500 yards of his 1000 free were swum in 4:41.88.
But the Seminoles’ streak stopped there thanks to Georgia Tech senior Caio Pumputis, who won the men’s 200 free in 1:37.32 – a margin of more than 2-seconds ahead of runner-up Aziz Ghaffari of Florida State.
Pumputis led a 1-3-4 finish for the Yellow Jackets that pulled them right back into the team scoring.
From there it was a back-and-forth affair, with Pumputis helping lift the Yellow Jackets via 3 individual finishes. He also won the 200 breaststroke in 1:56.70 and the 200 IM in 1:48.92. Both swims are ACC leaders, and in the case of the 200 breaststroke it’s the #3 time in the nation (and fastest time outside of the state of Texas) in college swimming this season.
Those times are also a stride ahead of where Pumputis was last season, when he regressed a little from his sophomore year, though we don’t know how he would have finished at the NCAA Championships. His 200 breaststroke time was two-and-a-half seconds better than he was at any dual meet last season and three-and-a-half better than he was at this dual meet last season.
He also split 43.51 to anchor the Yellow Jackets’ closing 400 free relay, a relay that upset the Florida State “A” by a margin of 2:58.69 to 2:59.87. While that made up a huge chunk of points at the end of the meet (12-4 margin in that event alone), the Yellow Jackets would have needed a 1-2 finish to take the win, and they were instead 1-3.
Other top splits in that relay included Aziz Ghaffari hitting 44.40 to anchor Florida State and Darrien Lim hitting 44.19 on Georgia Tech’s 3rd leg. Both are just sophomores.
The Georgia Tech men placed 9th and the Florida State men placed 5th at last year’s ACC Championship meet. The Florida State men are now 39-3 all-time against Georgia Tech.
Other Noteworthy Men’s Results:
- Georgia Tech senior Christian Ferraro took 3 events in the meet, along with Pumputis fighting to keep the team in the race. He won the 200 fly (1:46.41), 100 free (45.02), and 100 fly (47.74). Those times were all about on par with what he was going at this time last year, but were crucial for their team scoring value.
- The absence of Kyle Barone for Georgia Tech, who was 4th in the 100 back at last year’s ACC Championships, was a big break for Florida State. Probably the team’s weakest discipline coming into this season, the Seminole men still managed to pick up a 1-2-4 finish in the 100 back led by Mason Herbert in 48.20, and a 1-3-4 finish in the 200 back led by sophmore Nick Vance in 1:48.57. For Vance, who was 23rd in the 200 back at last year’s ACC meet, that time is more than a second better than he was on this weekend last season, giving the Seminoles hope for their backstroke future.
Women’s Meet
The Georgia Tech women flipped-the-script on the Seminoles. After Florida State won last year’s matchup 177-123, this year Georgia Tech won by almost the opposite score: 176-124.
For the Georgia Tech women, this is just their 2nd win in 17 all-time matchups with the Seminoles. Their last win came in 2014, where they squeaked out a 4-point victory over their ACC rivals.
The Georgia Tech women won 12 out of 16 events at the meet. The lone interlopers were Florida State freshman diver Samantha Vear, who won the women’s 1-meter, and the sprint freestyles, where a group led by senior Rebecca Moynihan was a Florida State sweep.
Moynihan led a 1-2-4 finish in the 50 free with a time of 23.56 and a 1-2-3 finish in the 100 free with a time of 51.73. She also anchored Florida State to a win by almost a full second in the 400 free relay, where she combined with Ana Zortea, Phoebe Griffiths, and Emma Terebo for a 3:28.32.
Otherwise, it was all Yellow Jackets all day.
Among what is a veteran Georgia Tech women’s team is freshman Rei Kuramoto, who won the women’s 200 free in 1:51.56 – taking a nail-biter by .04 seconds over Florida State’s Griffiths. Kuramoto came back later in the meet to win the 100 fly in another nailbiter. This time, she swam 56.59 to beat her freshman teammate Lindsey Merk by .07 seconds.
Other double winners for Georgia Tech on the day included senior Catriona MacGregor, who won the 200 IM (2:04.77) and 100 breast (1:04.29), Allie Paschal in the 100 (55.48) and 200 (1:59.83) backstrokes, and Maria Seifer in the 1000 (10:12.01) and 500 (4:57.11) freestyles. Seifer is a transfer from Miami University in Ohio swimming her first meet for the Yellow Jackets.