FORT MYERS, Fla. – The FGCU swimming & diving team (1-2, 1-0 CCSA) dropped a 186-113 result to FIU (2-0, 0-0 C-USA) after 16 events of competition on Saturday afternoon at the FGCU Aquatics Center. Senior
Petra Halmai (Dombovar, Hungary/Lanczos Kornel Secondari Grammar School) led the Eagles with a trio of individual wins, as she took home both the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke events, as well as the 200 IM. Sophomore
Hannah VanDress (Cape Coral, Fla./Bishop Verot) accounted for the Green & Blue's fourth individual victory, having captured the 1000 Free.
Though the Eagles were unable to overtake the Panthers for the win, they did vastly improve on their performance from the last dual between the teams, the regular-season finale of the 2019-20 season. That year, FGCU was only able to collect a total of 95 points upon completion of the meet.
"The team did a great job racing and taking advantage of today's opportunities," head coach
Dave Rollins said. "I am thankful that we were able to host the meet here, as we always look forward to chances to compete in front of our Eagle fans. We have some events to figure out before the CCSA Championship, but I am really excited with where we are as a team and in our training cycle."
Despite the team being limited to just four first-place finishes throughout the day, the Eagles turned in top-three times in each swim. Of the 12 total events that went to the Panthers, FGCU placed second in six of them.
Sophomore
Julia Rodriguez (Gainesville, Fla./Buccholz HS) narrowly missed what would have been win No. 5 for the Green & Blue, as she was less than half a second off of the winning pace in the 100 Fly. Rodriguez also scored for the Eagles in the 200 Fly, where she finished just behind second-place freshman
Sophia Macaisa (Inverness, Fla./Lecanto HS).
Junior
Wiktoria Czarnecka (Lublin, Poland/Liceum NR 10 W Lublinie) had a strong day, finishing the meet with a total of eight points scored from individual events. After placing second in the 50 Free, she turned in yet another second-place finish in the 100 Free. Both sophomore
Hailey Jerew (Miami, Fla./Cutler Bay Senior High) and freshman
Zuzanna Rabiniak (Radom, Poland/X Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace Mistrzostwa Sportowego W Lublinie) also added points in the 50-yard freestyle, swimming the third- and fifth-fastest times, respectively.
The 200 Back proved to be another crucial event for FGCU, as three different Eagles collected points. The effort that was led by freshman
Emma Hixenbaugh's (Louisville, Ky./Ballard HS) second-place swim. Both classmate
Alicja Ulicka (Rybno, Poland/Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace IM Wislawy Szymborskiej) and
Claire McAtee (Louisville, Ky./Sacred Heart Academy) also placed, finishing third and fifth, respectively.
On the boards, FGCU was led by sophomore
Reese Wakefield (Guelph, Ontario/Bishop Macdonelle CHS), who scored the fourth-highest points in both the 1m and 3m events. Fellow sophomores
Isabeau Keene (Demorest, Ga./Tallulah Falls School) and
Delaney Nelson (Cincinnati, Ohio/Ursuline Academy), rounded out the Green & Blue's scoring, adding a point apiece. Keene came in fifth on the 3m board, while Nelson finished fifth in the 1m event.
The Eagles will remain at The Nest as they prepare to close out the regular-season portion of their slate with a meet against UNF Jan. 29 & 30. Friday's competition is slated for a 4 p.m. start, with Saturday's scheduled for Noon. The second day of competition against the Ospreys will be senior day and the team is scheduled to honor Halmai.
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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 33-22-1 (.609) dual meet record, which includes an 12-2 (.857) 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.
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ABOUT FGCU
FGCU teams have combined to win an incredible 82 conference regular season and tournament titles in just 13 seasons at the Division I level. Additionally, in just nine seasons of D-I postseason eligibility, the Eagles have had a combined 38 teams or individuals compete in NCAA championships. Seven FGCU programs have earned a top-25 national ranking in their respective sport – including women's basketball (No. 24, 2019-20) and both men's soccer (2018, 2019) and women's soccer (2018) as three of the most recent. In 2016-17, the Green and Blue posted a department-best sixth-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 (APR) in their sport and have had the highest percentage of teams so honored from these two groups over each of the past three years. FGCU also collectively earned a record 3.46 GPA in the classroom in the spring 2020 semester and has outperformed the general University undergraduate population for 22 consecutive semesters. The 2019 Fall and 2020 Spring semesters each saw another milestone reached as all 15 programs achieved a 3.0-or-higher team GPA. 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--
