Tampa vs. Rollins College vs. Florida
- October 25th, 2024
- Tampa, Florida
- Short Course Yards (25 yards), Double Dual, No Diving
- Meet Results
- Team Scores:
- Men: D1 Tampa 191 – D1 Florida 71
- Men: D2 Tampa 205 – D2 Rollins College 57
- Men: D1 Florida 162 – D2 Rollins College 100
- Women: D2 Tampa 130 – D1 Florida 126
- Women: D1 Florida 160 – D2 Rollins 94
- Women: D2 Tampa 215 D2 Rollins 47
An upset for the ages: NCAA Division II power University of Tampa, including the 2024 national champion men’s team, swept their tri meet against the University of Florida and Rollins College on Friday.
The scoreline doesn’t tell the full story – the Gators sent a team made up primarily of swimmers who didn’t attend their blockbuster meet against Virginia last week (though there were a few exceptions, like Gracie Weyant).
But still, with a group of high-profile recruits for the deep Gators, the win is a watershed one for Tampa, with both the Gators men and women eyeing top 5 finishes at this season’s Division I NCAA Championship meet.
This meet was a last-minute addition to the Gator schedule after hurricanes disrupted their early season. It was also the season-opener for the Tampa men thanks to a busy hurricane season in Florida.
Tampa and Rollins swimmers both wore racing suits, while Florida did not – a point that was explicitly brought up in the Florida press release, which is an unusual acknowledgement in a school’s official communications.
Men’s Recap
The Tampa men set the tone early with a 1-2 finish in the opening 200 medley relay. That included a winning 1:27.80 that tiptoed them past national rivals UIndy (1:27.84) for the top time in Division II this season and the #25 time across all collegiate divisions.
That was followed by a 9:03.78 in the 1000 free from sophomore Jacob Hamlin – the top time in D2 by six seconds.
Hamlin finished 3rd in the 1000 free (8:58.32), 6th in the 1650 free (15:16.22), and 8th in the 500 free (4:25.43) at last year’s NCAA Division II Championship meet, and is already way ahead of pace – his best time in the 1000 a dual meet last season was 9:20.24, and that wasn’t until January.
The 1000 free is an NCAA Championship event in D2.
Hamlin finished 2nd in the 500 free later in the meet in 4:28.32, also way ahead of schedule, behind only his teammate Rafael Nicolas Ponce de Leon, who won in 4:26.77. Ponce de Leon won the 200 as well in 1:37.13.
Another 1-2 finish in the 1000 for the Spartans (Diego Dulieu, 9:11.18) meant the rout was on. The Tampa men won 11 events in total in the meet. That included a 1:19.77 in the 200 free relay to wrap the meet up, almost four seconds ahead of the runners-up from Florida.
Ponce de Leon led off that closing relay in a split of 20.75, and he was followed by Gabriel Rzezwicki (19.66), Tibor Tistan (19.53), and Caleb Brandon (19.83). Those three took the top three spots in the individual 50 free as well, including Tistan winning in 19.70. He is the first D2 swimmer under 20 seconds this season and is tied for 16th across all divisions.
Rollins College didn’t have the depth of Tampa to take out the Florida split-squad, but they did pick up the other two wins on the day. William Slowey won the 100 breaststroke in 55.03, which is within a second of his lifetime best of 54.07 from last year’s mid-season meet. He is historically very good throughout the year, though this is a dual meet best for him. Being fast multiple times didn’t really cost him at season’s-end last year – he was almost as good again at NCAAs to finish 20th in 54.14.
Rollins’ other win came from Evan McInerny in the 200 fly, which he won in 1:48.45. He used a big final 50 split of 28.25 to take a second off the runner-up Kenan Dean from Tampa (1:48.87).
Those two Rollins wins came back-to-back in the middle of the meet.
The Gators’ lone win in the men’s meet came from senior Raphael Rached Windmuller in the 200 breaststroke. He swam 2:01.41, another last-50 difference-maker ahead of Tampa’s Jared Mindek (2:01.70).
Florida also got a good performance from Caleb Maldari in the backstroke races. He finished 2nd in the 100 (50.29) and the 200 (1:48.16). Maldari was on last year’s US team for the World Junior Championships and finished 7th at the 2024 US Olympic Trials in the 200 back in long course.
Other Highlights:
- Tampa’s Parker Knollman won the 200 back in 1:46.71. He was 3rd at last year’s NCAA D2 Championship meet and the two swimmers ahead of him are both gone (Santi Zabala of Tampa graduated, Ben Sampson of Colorado Mesa transferred to Texas).
- Tibor Tistan added a win in the 100 free in 44.52 to his win in the 50 free, taking back-to-back races.
Women’s Recap
The women’s meet was much more competitive, with the battle between Florida and Tampa coming down to the final race.
In essence, whoever won the final relay was going to win the meet.
Florida got out to an early lead, and Gracie Weyant (23.34) gave them the fastest split of the meet, but ultimately Tampa just had ‘one more’ sprinter on that final relay. A 23.50 second leg from Tilde Morin put them into the lead, and they held on to win by over a second in 1:35.49.
A 1:33.80 in that relay from Tampa’s first meet leads D2 by more than a second.
Morin also picked up an individual win in the 50 free, touching in 24.12 as part of a 1-2-3 Spartan finish.
The split-squad for Florida put up a good fight throughout the meet, including freshman Gracie Weyant, who was part of the squad that traveled to Virginia last week.
She grabbed wins in the 200 free (1:50.54) and 500 free (4:53.30). That swim in the 500 is within four-tenths of her lifetime best done at the 18 & Under Winter Championships in 2020. She hasn’t raced much of the event in the last three years, but racing the 400 SCM free against Virginia and now the 500 here might indicate a shift of focus in Gainesville.
The Florida women picked up eight wins in 14 events, the lion’s share in the meet.
Besides Weyant, Anna Moore and Addison Reese were both multi-event winners for the Gators. Moore won the 100 breast (1:03.43) to lead a 1-2-3 Florida finish and the 200 breast (2:16.69) by 2.6 seconds. Reese, a freshman who like Weyant was ranked “Best of the Rest” among the top recruits in the class of 2024 by SwimSwam, won the 100 free in 51.39, the 100 fly in 54.81, and the 200 fly in 1:59.74.
For Tampa, the lone double winner individually was a freshman as well. Newcomer Carlie Tyler from the renowned Sacred Heart Academy program in Louisville that produced swimmers like Olympian Brooke Forde picked up a pair late in the meet. First she won the 200 back in 1:59.00, leading a 1-2-3 finish, and then she won the 200 IM in 2:03.78 in the last individual event of the meet. Those swims helped spur a late-meet rally, culminating in the victory-clinching 200 free relay.
