Tennessee Invite Day 1: Andison, Baldwin, Brown with Big Swims

2017 TENNESSEE INVITATIONAL

• Thursday, November 30th – Saturday, December 2nd
• Allan Jones Aquatic Center
• Knoxville, Tennessee
• Prelims 10 am CT / Finals 5 pm CT
• Championships Central
• Live Results (Also on Meet Mobile, if this link isn’t updated)
• Diving Results

Tonight marked the first finals session of the 2017 Tennessee Invitational. Going into tomorrow’s session, Tennessee leads both the men’s and women’s meets, with the Volunteer men sitting at 369.5 to second-place Penn’s 247 and the Volunteer women sitting at 327 to Duke’s 266.

The top performances of the night went to Denver’s Bailey Andison in the 200 IM (1:54.38), North Carolina’s Caroline Baldwin in the 50 free (21.48), and Tennessee’s Erika Brown in the 50 free (21.50). All three swimmers put up performances tonight that would have placed them in the top 8 at last year’s NCAA Championships.

WOMEN’S MEET

The North Carolina team of  Caroline Baldwin (21.77), Maddie Smith (22.06), Brooke Bauer (22.52), and Emma Cole (22.17) started off the meet with a half-second victory over Tennessee, hitting the wall in a NCAA-qualifying 1:28.52. Tennessee just missed the 1:28.71 qualifying standard with 1:29.07, though anchor Erika Brown hit the fastest split of the field with a flying start 21.57.

Denver’s Bailey Andison put up the second ‘A’ swim of the night in the 200 IM, swimming a personal best, school-record 1:54.38 to dip well under the 1:55.00 standard and drop over four seconds form her season-best. It was a huge swim, with a time fast enough to have placed her sixth at last year’s NCAAs. She split 25.31/29.53/32.30/27.24. (It’s also worth noting that this time would have placed Andison second in the field behind only Melanie Margalis at Winter Nationals tonight in Columbus.)

North Carolina’s Baldwin went even faster than her fastest-flat-start-of-the-field 200 free relay lead-off to win the 50 free in an ‘A’ time 21.48. That swim would have placed her fifth at last year’s NCAAs. Brown was very close behind in 21.60. Tonight, both swimmers were slower only than Simone Manuel (21.17, NR), Olivia Smoliga (21.27), Liz Li (21.29), and Farida Osman (21.38) were at the 2017 NCAAs. (These swims would have been quick enough to win and take second at Winter Nationals tonight, ahead of Smoliga’s 21.70)

The Tennessee team put up their final ‘A’ swim of the night with a dominating performance in the 400 medley relay. Micah Bohon (53.19), Katie Armitage (59.47), Brown (50.83), and Stanzi Moseley (47.99) teamed up to win the event in 3:31.48.

Canadian distance swimmer Tess Cieplucha of Tennessee won the 500 free in a season-best 4:40.43.

Team Scores:

1. Tennessee: 327
2. Duke: 266
3. North Carolina: 245
4. Denver: 183
5. Penn: 106
6. Carson-Newman: 44
7. Marshall: 41
8. Unattached (Kira Toussaint): 16

MEN’S MEET

Denver started off the meet with a win, taking the 200 free relay in 1:17.66 (Sid Farber: 19.25, Anton Loncar: 19.39, Cameron Auchinachie: 19.46, Stephen Calkins: 19.56). Though they outtouched Tennessee’s 1:17.68, they missed the NCAA qualifying mark by just .04.

Denver made it two-for-two when Colin Gilbert won the 500 free in 4:16.32. Then, in the 200 IM, the Tennessee men took their first event with Sam McHugh‘s 1:44.08. Tennessee’s Kyle Decoursey just missed the ‘A’ standard to win the 50 free, putting up 19.18 to the 19.05 standard.

To wrap up the night, the Tennessee men, Matthew Garcia (46.94), Peter Stevens (52.35), Ryan Coetzee (46.42), and Decoursey (42.25) went 3:07.96 to win the 400 medley relay.

Team Scores:

1. Tennessee: 369.5
2. Penn: 247
3. Denver: 222.5
4. Duke: 181
5. North Carolina: 116
6. Carson-Newman: 60