The FIU Panthers have built some serious momentum as the head toward the 2015 Conference USA “Men’s Invitational” in two weeks after wrapping up a perfect 9-0 season on Saturday with a win over the Miami Hurricanes.
Besides giving them an undefeated dual meet season, it gives the Panthers a claim to “South Florida’s best team,” as they’ve now beaten Florida Atlantic (twice), Florida Gulf Coast, and Miami: the region’s other three teams. Given the geographic draw for young people to the southern part of the state, this should be a powerful recruiting tool for Randy Horner and his staff going into the fall.
The final score for the meet came out 150-149 in favor of the travelling Panthers, and as the score indicated, this was a back-and-forth battle that had a lot of close races.
The tone was set early, when FIU beat Miami in the 200 medley relay by a narrow 1:44.69-1:44.83 margin. Both of those relays included two freshmen and just one senior, and the difference in the race was the freshmen on the leadoff. FIU’s Silvia Scalia, a newcomer this semester, split a 26.12: more than a second better than Miami freshman Julie Suarez.
Miami made up ground on every leg after that, but Scalia’s leadoff was enough for the win.
The Italian-born freshman also picked up wins in the 100 backstroke (55.56) and the 200 backstroke (2:00.23). In the latter of those races, she also used a strong early lead to hold off Miami’s new addition Ksenia Yuskova (2:01.13).
Just as FIU swept the backstroke events, though, Miami countered with a sweep of the butterfly events. First came a win in the 200 fly, where sophomore Angela Algee won easily in 2:02.96.
Later in the day, Miami’s My Fridell won the 100 fly in 54.81, with Algee taking 2nd in 56.89.
Going into the 2nd diving break, Florida International had a 10-point lead.
Scalia finished her day with a 3rd event victory, in the 200 IM, beating her NCAA-qualifying teammate Johanna Gustafsdottir by a second-and-a-half. Miami, renowned for their diving program, easily scored max points in that event, led by their two All-American seniors Cheyenne Cousineau and Thea Vock.
But FIU still had one individual event left for the hot-handed Scalia, and that was the lone remaining individual event: the 200 IM.
Scalia beat her NCAA-qualifying teammate Johanna Gustafsdottir by a second-and-a-half, swimming a 2:04.89 and 2:06.36, respectively, for an FIU 1-2 finish.
The unsung hero of the victory, however, was Becky Wilde. She swam a 2:09.61, her best time of the new semester, to take third-place ahead of Miami’s Suarez (2:10.59), which put FIU once again ahead by 10 points. That’s a noteworthy number because that meant all FIU had to do was take 2nd-place in the 400 free relay, and they would win the meet.
While the individual sprint events were split (FIU’s Jennifer Alfani won the 50 in 24.11, Miami’s Heather Arseth won the 100 in 51.84), the relay went pretty comfortably to Miami in 3:26.66.
Things got very interesting coming down to the final touch, but again FIU relied upon a freshman, this time Paulina Zelazna, to fight off Miami’s “B” relay 3:28.61-3:28.70 and seal the team victory.
Both teams have completed their regular-season schedules and will begin their conference championship meets on February 18th.
The team looks great and congratulations to everyone.
Nice coaching Zach McGinnis.