Swimming and Diving Opens The Season With Success

Saturday, October 26

Savannah, Ga.

1 p.m.

Georgia Southern University

185

Savannah Coll. of Art & Design

10/28/2013 3:22:00 PM | Swimming and Diving

By: Joanie Werling

SAVANNAH, Ga.- Georgia Southern swimming and diving opened up their schedule this weekend with success. The swimmers competed against both SCAD and Limestone, while the divers faced Clemson and Richmond.

"We had some pretty positive things to take away from our meet," said head coach Nathan Kellogg. "We were able to put some swimmers in different events than what they might usually swim, but it was nice to see where they are. There are definitely some things we need to work on and clean up, but overall I'm very happy with the way we competed as a team, the energy we had, and how we executed our races. We are looking forward to building on what we started today."

In the first event, the 200-yard medley relay, the Eagles took first (1:49.52) and second place (1:51.95) and were followed by Limestone and SCAD. Amber Juncker finished first in the 1000-yard freestyle (10:35.19), and took third in the 200-yard freestyle right behind Eagle Christina Moran who took second (1:58.42). In the 100-yard backstroke event, Elaina Lanson and Lauren Campbell locked in first and second place (1:00.94, 101.36). Kristen Bates and Abbie Lavallin secured first and second in Event 9 (100-yard breaststroke) with times of 1:04.95 and 1:06.74. Katlyn Jones took third (2:14.22) in the 200-yard butterfly, and Elaina Lanson earned first ( 24.56) in the 50-yard freestyle. Kristen Bates and Christina Moran placed second (55.43) and third (55.47) in the 100-yard freestyle event, right behind the first place swimmer from Limestone. Lauren Campbell finished second in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 2:09.67. Eagle Megan Ostrom received second place (2:29.25) in the 200-yard breaststroke. First (5:11.68) and third place (5:19.61) in the 500-yard freestyle were sealed in by Eagles Amber Juncker and Hannah Rogers. Megan Heller and Taylor Kelsch took the top two spots in the 100-yard butterfly event (59.49, 1:00.73), while Kristen Bates and Rebecca Alves procured second (2:11.40) and third (2:11.72) in the 200-yard IM. GSU's relay team of Christina Moran, Megan Heller, Devan White, and Elaina Lanson earned first in the 27th event (200-yard freestyle relay) to finish out the meet.

The divers' top finisher was Sara Meisenhelder, finishing third in the 3-meter dive with a score of 239.75, and earning an 8th place finish with 222.10 in the 1-meter dive. Emma Weisel took 6th scoring 231.10, followed by Amanda Macchio with 213.74 in the 3-meter event. The Eagles scored 218.90, 192.80, and 184.55 earning 10th(Macchio), 12th(Brittany Swanson), and 13th(Weisel) in the 1-meter dive.

Diving coach David Giambra said, "I thought we did well in our first meet. There is room for improvement but I think this meet was a good start to our season."

The Eagles next meet is November 9th in Charleston, S.C. against College of Charleston and East Carolina University.

Georgia Southern Athletics provides up-to-date information on all its sports through its official website, GSEagles.com, through social media channels facebook.com/GSAthletics and twitter.com/GSAthletics, and its new "Eagles GATA" mobile app for Android and iOS.