AUBURN, Ala. – Auburn sent nine more swimmers to the finals Saturday and finished the week with 571 points to place ninth at this year's SEC Women's Championships in Athens, Georgia.
"It's certainly an outcome we will work to improve in the future," Auburn head coach Gary Taylor said. "There were many opportunities for growth, and I thought we saw growth throughout the meet from one session, one day to the next. I thought we stepped up and performed well on Friday, and I thought we came back today and had some good performances as well."
Freshman Hannah Ownbey and senior Carly Cummings each qualified for their third final of the week, swimming in the B-Final in the 200 breaststroke Saturday night. Ownbey finished 12th overall in the event and was followed by Cummings in 13th.
Ownbey, who made the A-Final in both the 200 and 400 IM earlier in the week, was one of eight Auburn freshmen to swim or dive in an individual final at this year's SEC Championships. Five of those seven – Ownbey, Kensley Merritt, Brynn Curtis, Elysse Pardus and Colby Hurt – swam a second final Saturday night.
The SEC Diving Championships also wrapped up Saturday with the men's platform event, and Hunter Kebler and Logan Andrews both just missed the finals, finishing ninth and 10th respectively in prelims.
DAY 4 HIGHLIGHTS
The top finisher of the night came in the 1650 freestyle where sophomore Averee Preble opened the scoring by finishing 11th with a time of 16:14.14. Junior Emily Hetzer followed in 12th while freshman Colby Hurt took 21st. All three swam season bests and scored points for Auburn.
Merritt swam a lifetime best (1:55.65) to finish second in the C-Final of the 200 backstroke. The freshman also scored points Friday night, swimming in the B-Final of the 100 backstroke.
The Tigers didn't have anybody make finals in the 100 freestyle, but both Claudia Thamm and Abby Gibbons put in lifetime-best swims in prelims. Thamm also led off Auburn's 400 freestyle relay in the final event of the night.
Ownbey and Cummings were joined by Curtis in the B-Final of the 200 breaststroke. In prelims, Ownbey made her third all-time top-10 performer list of the week, moving into sixth all-time at Auburn with a lifetime-best 2:10.09. Cummings still holds the program record for the event, and Curtis is seventh all-time at 2:10.29.
Elysse Pardus and Devan Sweeney both advanced to the C-Final in the 200 butterfly where they finished 22nd and 23rd respectively. It was the second finals appearance for both swimmers. Sweeney just missed a third final, swimming a lifetime best in the 100 back prelims.
Kebler was the standout diver of the day, scoring a personal best 319.45 points on platform. Both Kebler and Andrews made Zone qualifying scores to close out the meet.
QUOTEABLE
Head coach Gary Taylor
On what's next for Auburn…
"This team shows the ability to be a whole lot better next year, and I think that's going to be the goal and expectation. Some good opportunities, some good experience, some good growth with the eyes on NCAAs now, which I think we have five or six potentially qualified, and looking to improve upon our performance next year."
Head diving coach Jeff Shaffer
On men's platform…
"What a great performance for Hunter. Really just faltered on one dive, a reverse two-and-a-half, just over-rotated a little bit, but he competed strong. And Logan was consistent all the way through. It was a great way to end the meet, ninth and 10th. Yeah, it would've been nice to see one of those two bump into the finals and get a second list but proud of their effort and proud of the team at this SEC Championships."
STANDINGS
1. Kentucky, 1,124
2. Florida, 1,071
3. Georgia, 999
4. Alabama, 973
5. Tennessee, 934
6. Texas A&M, 839
7. Missouri, 614.5
8. Arkansas, 595
9. Auburn, 510
10. LSU, 390.5
11. South Carolina, 276
12. Vanderbilt, 154
UP NEXT
The SEC Men's Swimming Championships will take place next week, Feb. 23-26, from Columbia, Missouri, and follow the same schedule as the women this week in Athens. Auburn is looking to an improve off an eighth-place finish at last year's SEC meet.
Tigers score 510 to cap SEC Women's Championships
