2005 SEC Championships

The Lady Razorback Swimming and Diving team has just completed the 2005 SEC conference meet and have much to celebrate. This year’s meet was hosted by the University of Florida and was spread out over the last two weeks. As Florida’s racing course and diving area are the same part of the pool, the divers dove there two weeks ago while the swimming took place last week. The Arkansas Divers are a young but talented bunch. As all three of our SEC divers were freshmen, we didn’t have any post-season experience coming into the meet. However, they all did very well highlighted by Brie Kushner’s 10th place finish on 3 meter with a Zone qualifying score. All three divers, Brie, Hilarie Wilson and Jamie Hyslop dove tower and gave us all reason to be very optimistic about our future.

Parents and fans at the 2005 SEC Swimming Championships

The swimming started last Wednesday with the 200 medley and 800 free relay. Both of those were season bests by far and full of outstanding individual swims. Senior Lisa Petry dropped 4 seconds in her 200 free to split a 1:53!

The individual events began Thursday and many of our swims were amazing. Freshman Juliette Burks and Emily Gregory 

both had lifetime bests in the 50 while junior Angela Kora did the same in the 200 IM.

Friday’s events were just as exciting with our first team record falling in the 100 butterfly by Emily Gregory. Her time of 55.20 eclipsed teammate Zsuzsa Csobanki’s old record of 55.45. That swim was one of many lifetime performances on Thursday including Lisa Petry’s 100 backstroke.

The 2005 Razorback SEC team relaxing after the meet

Friday was the last day of the meet and probably our best. We had lifetime bests in the 200 fly by Emily Gregory, Sarah Moll and Maca Fulop. The 200 backstroke from Lisa Petry and Angela Kora. Molly Muck overcame a season of injury to have her college best 200 breaststroke and we were pleased with our 400 free relay at the end.

Overall, the meet was amazing for us. Of our 11 swimmers, 10 had lifetime or college best times. Congratulations to seniors Whitney Lynn and Zsuzsa Csobanki and freshman Emily Gregory on their NCAA “B” cuts.

The most impressive part of the experience was the team atmosphere. As a small team, we rely heavily upon full participation by every member both in the pool and on the deck. Whenever an Arkansas Swimmer was in the water, the rest of the team was on their feet enthusiastically cheering. More importantly however, when any of us had a disappointment, there were always a few teammates ready to support them. In fact the team support was contagious enough to spread to our parents. Each morning when we left our hotel rooms, there was always a new poster or sign on the door an even a red carpet leading us to the elevator! On Saturday, our mothers and grandmothers caught the attention of the whole crowd when they tore off their shirts on deck to reveal letters painted on their undershirts. And as you can guess, they spelled “ARKANSAS” all across the end of the pool. It was a lot of fun to watch and showed all of the SEC how much our parents are behind us.

Arkansas mothers showing off their team spirit

Finally, one of the exciting things about being in the SEC is watching some of the fastest swimmers in the world. We saw multiple NCAA and American records broken and were amazed to see how fast our conference has become.

The next stop for us is our last chance meets. The divers will be traveling to Athens to compete at the University of Georgia while swimmers will be competing here in Fayetteville.

 

 

 

Check back next week to see what's happening with the H2OGS!