FORT MYERS, Fla. – The FGCU swimming and diving team (5-0, 4-0 CCSA) continued its hot start to the 2019-20 season, earning a decisive 172-121 victory over Vanderbilt (1-3, 0-1 SEC) Friday night at the FGCU Aquatics Complex. The win marked the program's first over an SEC opponent in a dual meet.

"It was a great day," head coach Dave Rollins said. "Before we got started, I told the team that I wanted us to win every aspect of the meet, including team support, warming down, their turns, their breakouts and their finishes. They did a really good job of that. There are some areas that we can improve, but to see how fast some of those girls were swimming this early in the season is really exciting."

Over the course of the meet's 16 events, the Eagles picked up 10 first-place finishes. Junior Petra Halmai led the way, taking home three individual events and contributing to a Green and Blue relay win.

FGCU opened up the competition with a win in the 200-yard medley relay. Freshman Lucija Sulenta, Halmai (Dombovar, Hungary/Lanczos Komel Secondari Grammar School), senior Cassidy Fry and sophomore Wiktoria Czarnecka finished 0.26 seconds before a Vanderbilt quartet to garner the team's first points of the day.

Freshman Kaja Reinhardt was the next big winner for the Eagles, touching the wall first in the 200 Free. Classmate Anna Hogan (Louisville, Ky./DuPont Manual HS) also contributed points in the race as FGCU jumped out to a 29-25 lead.

Halmai earned her first individual victory of the meet in the 100-yard breaststroke. Her time of 1:01.18 currently stands as the 11th-fastest time in the country. She also laid down a nationally-ranked time in the 200 Breast; her mark of 2:11.36 checks in at fourth in the collegiate standings, behind only Power-5 opponents. That time is .15 seconds off of her personal best, which stands as the school record.

FGCU picked up crucial points in the middle of the meet as the team posted a four-event stretch of top finishes. The streak began in the 200 Fly, which featured an Eagle sweep via the efforts of Halmai, freshman Julia Rodriguez (Gainesville, Fla./Buchholz HS) and Fry (Oakwood, Ohio/Oakwood HS). Czarnecka (Lublin, Poland/Liceum nr 10 w Lublinie) and freshman Hailey Jerew continued the scoring with a one-two finish in the 50-yard freestyle, which was followed up by rookie Reese Wakefield's win in the 3M dive. Czarnecka capped off the run with another individual triumph in the 100 Free. She was followed by Reinhardt (Herdecke, Germany/Helene-Lange-Gymnasium Dortmund) and Jerew (Miami, Fla./Cutler Bay Senior HS).

Wakefield (Guelph, Ontario, Canada/Bishop Macdonelle CHS) continued to pick up wins in her rookie campaign as she won the 1M board to sweep both diving events. She outscored her opponents by a combined 33.67 points and has so far won every diving event that she has competed in as an Eagle.

In the final event of the day, it was the Eagles who touched the wall first in the 400-yard freestyle relay by a thrilling, 0.04-second margin. Reinhardt, Czarnecka, Sulenta (Zagreb, Croatia/Gimnazija I ekonomska skola Benedikta Kotruljevica) and Jerew provided the Green and Blue's last points of the meet as the quartet edged the second-place Commodores with a time of 3:27.07.

In addition to the excitement of the victory, multiple FGCU swimmers notched new lifetime bests. Jerew took about a second and a half off of her previous mark in the 100 Free in just her third collegiate meet. Senior Elizabeth White (Fort Myers, Fla./Riverdale HS) swam a 2:18.85 in the 200 Breast, almost half a second faster than her previous best.

With the win, the Eagles continue the start of the season with their best mark since 2015-16. That year, FGCU began its campaign with a 7-0 mark in dual meets.

Up Next
FGCU will remain at the Nest to host Houston (3-0, 2-0 American) in a two-day meet beginning at 4 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 1. The teams will resume the action at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 2. On Friday, fans are invited to participate in a Halloween costume contest. The Cougars were represented at last year's NCAA Championship by multiple student-athletes across different events.

FOLLOW ALONG
For up-to-date coverage of FGCU women's swimming and diving, follow us on Twitter @FGCU_WSWIM and visit www.FGCUAthletics.com where full recaps and results will be available.

HEAD COACH DAVE ROLLINS
Head coach Dave Rollins is only the second coach in program history. He was hired Sept. 1, 2016 and owns a 30-13 (.698) dual meet record, which includes an 11-1 (.916) mark against CCSA opponents, in his fourth season. Rollins guided FGCU to back-to-back CCSA titles (2017, 2018), as well as the program's fourth-straight title in 2018, marking the ninth championship in 10 years. In addition, he has been awarded CCSA Coach of the Year in two of his seasons at the helm. Previously, Rollins was the associate head men's swimming coach at The Ohio State University. Rollins brings over a decade of coaching experience to The Nest, which includes helping to develop Olympians, NCAA Champions and All-Americans, along with multiple conference champions. A native of Brockton, Mass., he was a standout collegiate swimmer in his own right and was inducted into the University of Arizona's Hall of Fame in 2017, as a nine-time NCAA All-American, national champion, school record holder and team captain.

#FEEDFGCU
FGCU Athletics sponsors events throughout the year to benefit the FGCU Campus Food Pantry (www.fgcu.edu/foodpantry) and the Harry Chapin Food Bank (www.harrychapinfoodbank.org), FGCU Athletics' charities of choice. For more information, including how to make a contribution, please visit www.fgcu.edu/foodpantry and utilize the hashtag #FeedFGCU to help raise awareness.

ABOUT FGCU
FGCU teams have combined to win an incredible 78 conference regular season and tournament titles in just 12 seasons at the Division-I level. Additionally, in just eight seasons of D-I postseason eligibility, the Eagles have had a combined 36 teams or individuals compete in NCAA championships. Seven FGCU programs have earned a top-25 national ranking in their respective sport – including both men's and women's soccer again in 2018. In 2016-17, the Green and Blue posted a department-best 6th-place finish in the DI-AAA Learfield Directors' Cup and top-100 showing nationally, ahead of several Power-5 and FBS institutions. In 2018-19, the Eagles had an ASUN and state of Florida best seven teams earn the NCAA's Public Recognition Award for their Academic Progress Rate in their sport. FGCU also collectively earned a record 3.35 GPA in the classroom in the spring 2018 semester and has outperformed the general University undergraduate population for twenty consecutive semesters. The Eagles also served an all-time high 7,200 volunteer hours in 2017 – being recognized as one of two runners-up for the inaugural NACDA Community Service Award presented by the Fiesta Bowl.

--FGCUATHLETICS.COM--