Swimming & Diving in Second Place after Day Two of the Highlander Invitational
11/19/2011 4:14:00 AM | Swimming and Diving
RADFORD, Va. - Georgia Southern Swimming and Diving moved into second place at the Highlander Invitational on Friday with one more day of competition remaining. The Eagles moved up one spot after a strong showing that included a first-place finish and three top-3 finishes at the Dedmon Center Natatorium.
"Our team got the work done this morning and that put us in a really good position tonight," said Head Coach Nate Kellogg. "We swam really well today and hope to continue that tomorrow. We will have a lot of swimmers competing in their best events and our goal will be to swim hard in the morning so that we can race for points in the afternoon."
Sophomore Kristen Bates (Peachtree City, Ga.) set a new meet record in the 100 Breast (1:05.34), swimming to a first-place finish to lead the Eagles' charge. Bates also swam with JoAnn Filipov (Watkinsville, Ga.), Sarah Schwartz (Greenwood, S.C.) and Elaina Lanson (Wadsworth, Ohio) to a third place finish (1:48.53) in the 200 Medley Relay, while the team of Katie Crider (Bloomington, Ind.), Megan Ostrom (St. Louis Park, Minn.), Abigail Lavallin (Bridgwater, Somerset) and Emily Fell (Brunswick, Ga.) finished eleventh (1:53.64).
The Eagles placed six swimmers in the top-16 in the 400 Individual Medley, including Amber Juncker (Bogart, Ga.) in sixth (4:36.88), Rikki Babuka (Richmond, Ky.) in eighth (4:44.01), Lindsay Mullican (Lancaster, Pa.) in 11th (4:41.86), and Allyn Case (Savannah, Ga.), Megan Ostrom (St. Louis Park, Minn.) and Courtney Harrison (Greenville, S.C.) in 14th-16th place, respectively.
Schwartz also swam to an eight place finish in the 100 Butterfly (59.48), while Devan White (Kennesaw, Ga.) earned the Eagles' third top-3 finish on the day in the 200 Free (1:55.80). Lanson and Juncker earned eighth (1:58.46) and 11th-place (1:58.49) finishes.
In the 100 Breast, Ostrom, Harrison, Case and Lavallin each placed inside the top-15. Schwartz and Filipov placed seventh (1:00.71) and eighth (100.85) in the 100 Back, while Lanson swam to a 16th-place finish (1:04.04).
In the 800 Free Relay, the team of Babuka, Juncker, Pirie Humphries (Athens, Ga.) and White finished sixth (8:01.68), while Mullican Fell, Crider and Case finished 12th (8:15.90) to round out the scoring for the Eagles.
Georgia Southern returns to the pool on Saturday morning for preliminaries, with the last round of finals scheduled to end at 4:15 p.m.
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