Florida Last-Chance Meet
- February 24th-26th, 2017
- Last-chance qualifier for NCAA Championships
- O’Connell Center, Gainesville, Florida
- Day 1 results
- Day 2 results
- What qualified last year
Day 2 of the 2017 Florida Last-Chance Meet, one of 9 last chance meets happening around the country this weekend and next, saw swimmers seal up invites in almost every one of the day’s events. Once again, the home team Florida Gators were the biggest beneficiaries of last chance swims, adding several more to their NCAA roster.
While not needing any qualifying times, Florida’s sprint superstar Caeleb Dressel, the fastest man ever over 50 and 100 yards, made an appearance on Saturday, swimming a 1:33.42 in the 200 free. His previous season-best was a 1:34.60 from the Georgia Fall Invite. Jan Switkowski, also already qualified for NCAAs, swam a 1:34.41 – a season-best for him as well.
That swim for Dressel ranks him as the 2nd-fastest Florida Gator this season, behind only freshman Maxime Rooney’s 1:32.18. It also ranks Dressel 7th nationally with ACCs and Pac-12s left to swim.
- Florida’s Savanna Faulconer swam a 4:07.24 in the 400 IM final, which improved her SEC time by 3 seconds – just like she did in the 500 free on Friday. While that 500 probably locked up her NCAA invite, this 400 IM, which ranks her now 19th nationally, for sure sealed her bid. Her teammate Katy Sargent swam a season best of 4:10.78, which ranks her 43rd – probably not enough for an invite, barring a few unforseen scratches.
- Alex Lebed swam a 3:44.15 in the 400 IM, which pushes him up from 22nd to 18th nationally with still the Pac-12 and ACC Championships left to go. That time would’ve been invited last year by a second, and is probably on the right side of the bubble.
- Miami’s Angela Algee swam a 52.01 in the 100 fly final, which jumps her from 45th to 21st nationally. With only last chance meets left, and 39 or 40 swimmers typically getting invites per event, that time makes her safe for an invite.
- Florida’s Kelsey Dambacher was only ranked 121st nationally with her 1:47.11 from the SEC Championships coming into the meet, but jumped all the way to 47th with her prelims 1:45.49 in the 200 free. As a relay event, there’s a few swimmers ahead of her who probably won’t swim this event individually at NCAAs, so that swim has a chance, but is by no-means a lock.
- Florida’s Chandler Bray improved his 52.71 in the 100 breaststroke at SECs to a 52.61 on Saturday morning. That ties him for 15th with Pac 12s and ACCs still left to swim. Bray swam a 52.65 as a high school senior last year in Indiana.
- After failing to improve his season best in a time trial on Friday, Florida’s Bayley Main again stands pat with a 46.73 in the 100 back final on Saturday. The same goes for Jack Blyzinskyj, who swam 46.74.
Dressel is needed in other relays
It doesn’t show on the results because they only swam prelims (those results are on Twitter) but Kelly Fertel went 4:07.45 in the 400 IM and Brennan Balogh went 3:44.58. Enzo Martinez Scarpe improved his final time in the 50 to a 19.48 in time trials. I’ve never seen this much improvement from UF at a last chance meet. If the guys who didn’t have their cuts before are cutting this much time now, it seems to me that the top end has a lot left in the tank for NCs. Should be a great meet!
23 flat to bring it home?
You need to post the prelim and time trial results as well. Florida had another women’s swimmer, Kelly Fertel, post a 4:07 in the 400 IM and Brennan Balogh post a 3:44 in the 400 IM in the preliminaries and then scratch finals. In addition, there have been some time trial performances that may also qualify for the NCAA meet.
For a sprinter he came home with a vengeance. Makes me wonder what he could do when he’s fully torqued ready to go at NCAA should he be put in Florida’s 800 Relay. He could certainly make a difference for them there. Don’t know if they afford to not have his sprints on the other relays though.
I don’t know, if he’s fully torqued at NCAA’s that could be a problem for the 8free. Either Dressel is thinking about some honey in Gainesville, or he looked over and saw how cute Jack Conger looks in a Mizuno
Hahahahahahaha
“he looked over and saw how cute Jack Conger looks in a Mizuno”
Isn’t that what your mother said about you?
Since you can only do 4 relays, it is not worth it for Florida to have him on the 800 FR since they have a lot of other swimmers that are close to that time.
He could swim 5 relays but he could only swim 2 individual events. Like someone said before, it wouldn’t be smart for UF to do that since they have so much depth in the 200 Free.
Caeleb is not swimming the 800 free relay. They don’t need him in that event.