The Florida men were the recipients of some positive news on Tuesday, as they learned that freshman Carlos Omana was called up to the NCAA Championships in the 400 IM.
This can mean huge swings in point scoring – unlike the women’s meet, where scratches brought up the 30th or 31st ranked swimmer, because the NCAA cut line was so low this season, Omana is only three-tenths of a second from scoring in the 400 IM.
The Gators now have three freshman that earned invites in that race, with Eduardo Solaeche-Gomez seeded 3rd and Dan Wallace seeded 7th. That also gives them their 6th overall freshman invite to the meet, bumping them into a tie with Cal in that category.
Omana will also enter the 500 free (seeded 35th – 4:21.82) and the mile (seeded last in 15:26.41).
The opening came as the result of a scratch from Stanford’s Thomas Stephens, who was a member of Stanford’s qualifying 800 free relay. His likely replacement will be Andrew Saeta, who had an overall outstanding meet at Pac-12’s and swam a 1:36.16 in the individual 200 free there. That was about a second faster than the 1:37.05 that Stephens was in the individual.
Here are the updated psych sheets.
Ohio State’s Steven Zimmerman now becomes the top alternate for the meet.
I think omana gives them a total of six freshmen, not seven. A very young team that could be a force in the future.
Right you are. They’ve got 12 going to NCAA’s. Two are seniors (only on the free relays). One is a junior (Cameron Martin in the 200 fly). The other 9 are all freshmen and sophomores, including Bradley Deborde, who could be a very good one. Young, young, team. Well rounded team too if they find a backstroker.