LAKELAND â€" Lauren Reynolds added two more backstroke wins to her victory total, and Kelsey Gouge won the 100-yard freestyle, but 4th-ranked Florida Southern fell to Emory University, the top-ranked team in Division III, 195-67. The Moccasins are now 4-1 in dual meets this season, while the Eagles improved to 3-2.
Friday’s result ended the Moccasins’ school-record dual-meet winning streak at nine, but Reynolds extended her own personal winning streak in the backstroke to 10. The sophomore from South Elgin, Illinois won both the 100 and 200 on Friday, beating out Emory’s Ellie Thompson each time. Reynolds has now won the 100-yard backstroke five times this season, and the 200 four times.
In the 100-backstroke Thompson came into the meet with a slightly faster season-best time than Reynolds, but Reynolds edged her out by three one-hundredths of a second. In the 200-yard race, it was Reynolds who entered with the better time this season, and she ended up with another win by finishing 0.97 seconds ahead of Thompson.
Gouge picked up her fourth straight win in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 52.90 seconds that was 0.17 off an NCAA “B†qualifying time. The sophomore from Snellville, Georgia had already reached a “B†standard earlier this year, and her time on Friday was still strong enough to win the 100-freestyle by three-tenths of a second over Emory’s Nancy Larson.
The Eagles started the meet by winning the first three races, though Florida Southern did get a second-place showing from sophomore Heather Burns (Lake City, Fla.) in the 1,000-yard freestyle, and another second-place finish from sophomore Alli Crenshaw (Marietta, Ga.) in the 200-yard freestyle. The latter race also saw freshman Cassie Ley (Hilton Head, S.C.) finish third in her first 200-freestyle of the season, and Burns finish fourth, making it Florida Southern’s best race of the day.
The Moccasins also got third-place finishes from Gouge in the 100-yard breaststroke and the 200-yard individual medley, and Crenshaw in the 500-yard freestyle. Gouge was competing in the 200-IM for the first time this year, but her time of 2:12.01 has been topped only three times by a Moccasin swimmer this year, including twice by Ley.
Florida Southern will be back in action on Saturday in its final home meet of the season, with the 4th-ranked Moccasins facing #15 Nova Southeastern at 2 p.m.
