Nov. 17, 2017
The Auburn women's swimming and diving team increased its lead at the Georgia Tech Invitational on Friday night in Atlanta, bringing home two more runner-up finishes and 15 top-10 finishes.
"We had a lot of girls swimming double events today and they stepped up," Associate Head Coach Lauren Hancock said. "Eight-one percent of our swims tonight were faster than this morning. We were very pleased with their resiliency coming off a tough prelims session."
Aly Tetzloff brought home her second runner-up finish of the invitational with a 53.26 in the 100 back. Right behind her was Erin Falconer in third in 53.70.
The school record holder in the 100 fly, Haley Black finished third in the event in 52.44, just ahead of Tetzloff in fourth (53.00). Bailey Nero was seventh (53.86).
Julie Meynen was Auburn's top finisher in the 200 free, touching in 1:48.08 to take fourth. Jessica Merritt was two spots behind her in sixth (1:48.18) and Falconer was seventh (1:48.60).
Zoe Thatcher brought home a fifth-place finish in the 400 IM in 4:16.43 while Carly Cummings was eighth in 4:22.64.
Breanna Roman was fifth as Auburn's lone championship finalist in the 100 breast, clocking a 1:02.38.
Tetzloff, Roman, Black and Ashton Ellzey opened the night just as Thursday night's had ended, with a runner-up finish in a medley relay. On Friday it was the 50 free winner Ellzey stepping in to anchor for Meynen and the senior split a 22.03 as the quartet finished in the 200-yard version of the event in 1:38.61, which puts them in the top 10 fastest in the nation.
"The girls are very confident, relaxed and standing behind one another in such a special way and I think that will carry over into tomorrow," Hancock said. "Hopefully we can finish this out, extend our lead over second place and continue swimming our fastest times thus far of the season."
One night after taking second on the 1-meter, Alison Maillard did the same on the 3-meter, scoring a 318.35. Erin Norton, who was seventh on the 1-meter, finished sixth on the 3-meter with a 275.55.
"Alison had a solid list in the prelims but had one missed dive in the finals," diving coach Jeff Shaffer said. "But it was another good learning experience that will hopefully make us stronger in the future."
Auburn closed out the night with a fourth-place finish in the 800 free relay. Thatcher, Tetzloff, Falconer and Merritt went a combined 7:18.95 in the team's first crack at the event this season.
After two days, Auburn's women have racked up 778.5 points to increase the lead of second-place Alabama (703 pts) to 75.5 points. Host Georgia Tech is third with 616 points, Florida State is fourth (596.5 pts) and South Carolina is fifth (423 pts).
Auburn also sent it's men's diving team to the invitational and for the second straight day, it advanced three of five divers into the finals. Pete Turnham was Auburn's top finisher on the 1-meter on Friday, placing third with a personal best 359.50 in finals. Scott Lazeroff finished sixth (331.00) and Logan Andrews eighth, also hitting a personal best (305.35) and meeting the Zone Championship score requirement.
"Pete was one dive away in finals from challenging for first," Shaffer said. "Logan put together a solid list of dives and Scott was consistent. There were a few dives that could have made the difference in place finish, if we had finished our dives a little bit stronger."
The three-day invitational concludes on Saturday with the 1650 free, 200 back, 100 free, 200 breast, 200 fly, platform and 400 free relay.