After two seasons at Georgia, junior Spencer Rowe has decided to transfer to Division II power Florida Southern.
The Tennessee-native, who swam for the Baylor School as a prep, has yards bests of 55.0 and 1:57.88, both of which were done at the SEC Championships in 2013 as a sophomore. Coming out of high school, he was 55.3 and 2:00.38, showing that he’s made more progress in his 200 than his 100 in two seasons at Georgia.
His addition will be a huge help to the Florida Southern men, who were 2nd at last year’s NCAA Division II Championship meet. They graduated a lot of seniors last season, including their top breaststroker, and one of the best in the country, Miguel Fereira.
The Mocs do have a senior Zach Edwards, who has an almost identical best time in the 100 breaststroke, and both swimmers should score at Division II NCAA’s in that race. In the 200, thanks to some graduations, Rowe should be battling for second-place nationally behind UCSD’s Nicholas Korth.
Rowe is also a 1:54.14 in the 200 IM and in high school was a 50.24 in the 100 yard fly. He’ll have to make big improvements in either of those races to score nationally, but is not out-of-range in either. If Florida Southern head coach Duncan Sherrard really wanted to step outside of the box, we could see Rowe swimming the fly legs on the Mocs’ medley relays, given that they’re relatively thin in that event.
Rowe will begin officially with the Mocs in the spring semester. He’s currently training with Charles Todd and Carpet Capital Aquatics until then.
