Miami Falls Short in Homecoming Meet
CORAL GABLES, FLA. – The University of Miami women’s swimming and diving team came up short in its Homecoming rivalry matchup with Florida State Friday afternoon, falling 155-145.
“Great atmosphere at the pool. Great swimming and diving. There was a lot of good energy from the Canes. Miami did a great job of representing the U.
Unfortunately, we came up just short, but the fact that we were so close was a great step for our program. It was a lot closer than it has been in recent years. We’re not quite there yet. We know we’ve got more work to do. It was a close meet. We had eight event wins in swimming and two wins in diving. We won 10-out-of-16 events,” head coach Andy Kershaw said.
Miami started the meet off strong winning the first three events. Miami’s ‘A’ team placed first (Mason, Vovk, Carvalho and Hinton) in the 200-yard medley relay (1:40.69) to open the afternoon.
Miami secured first and second place finishes in the 1000-yard freestyle by veterans Adrianna Cera (10:13.07) and Aino Otava (10:15.68).
“It was so good to see how the team swam in the races and the freedom they swam them with. This is one of the things we’ve been working on at practice. We practice a lot and do a lot of thinking on details at practice and then at the meet the team can be free and that’s what they did. I’m really proud of that,” Kershaw said.
Cera additionally placed first in the 500-yard freestyle (4:58.49). Jane Fitzgerald placed first in the 200-yard freestyle (1:50.74). Tara Vovk secured an individual first place finish for Miami in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:01.63). In the 50-yard freestyle, the Canes had back-to-back finishes with Giulia Carvalho (23.29) and Jacey Hinton (23.47) placing first and second in the event.
The Canes won both of their diving events with Emma Gullstrand placing first in both the 1-meter and 3-meter dives. Veteran diver Mia Vallée followed behind in second in each event.
Kate Sommerstad placed second in the 200-yard backstroke (2:01.99). Vovk also found more success later in the meet for the Canes with two second place finishes in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:16.59) and 200-yard IM (2:03.82).
“I’m really proud of the alumni coming out to the meet. It was a great experience and atmosphere,” he said.
Miami won their final event of the race in the 200-yard freestyle relay by the ‘A’ team of Carvalho, Spaulding, Sundstrand and Hinton (1:32.71).
“We’ve got at least one more chance to face Florida State in the spring season at ACC’s. Hats off to the Seminoles. We took them a little bit by surprise coming out of the gate, but they did what good teams do and responded by holding us off. Very happy with our performance today, but still looking forward to what’s ahead.”
Miami will head to Dallas in a few short weeks to compete in the SMU Invite on Nov. 17.
