DAVIE – Junior Alli Crenshaw led a large group of Florida Southern qualifiers with a win in the finals of the 200-freestyle, junior Morgan Burns set a school record in the 400-IM, while junior Kelsey Gouge and sophomore Cassie Ley were part of two near-misses in the two relay races Friday night as day two of the Shark Invitational ended with the Moccasins in third place out of six competing teams.
Of the five total events held on Friday (three individual and two relay races), Florida Southern's best performance came in the 200-freestyle where Crenshaw (Marietta, Ga.) won in a time of 1:49.38, and Ley (Hilton Head, S.C.), freshman Peyton Breault (Jacksonville, Fla.) and sophomore Elizabeth Fris (Holland, Mich.) were all in the A finals too. The Mocs also got a win from sophomore Lily Rose (Rockley, Barbados) in the B finals, with sophomores Leah Haney (Evans Ga.) and Riley McClendon (Mansfield, Texas) in that race as well.
Crenshaw's win was her second of the meet following her gold medal finish in the 1,000-freestyle on Thursday. Her time Friday in the 200 was an NCAA "B" standard and gave her a 1.8-second win over Tampa's Brianna Murphy. Ley's time of 1:52.91 was another "B" standard for the Moccasins, and Breault came up just two one-hundredths of a second short.
In the relay races, Florida Southern placed third in the 200-freestyle and second in the 400-medley. The freestyle relay was exceptionally close with the top teams from Nova Southeastern, Tampa and Florida Southern all finishing within 0.66 seconds of each other and all of them hitting the NCAA "B" qualifying time. Gouge (Snellville, Ga.) swam the leadoff leg in that race, followed by Crenshaw, Ley, and junior Lauren Reynolds (South Elgin, Ill.).
Later in the night, the Mocs got their runner-up finish and another NCAA "B" time in the 400-medley relay from Reynolds, Gouge, sophomore Alex Ballard (Kingfisher, Okla.), and Ley.
Florida Southern also had four of the top eight swimmers in the 100-butterfly, led by a "B" time from Reynolds, who placed third in 57.12 seconds. Ballard, senior Catie Carden (Hixson, Tenn.) and sophomore Kourtney Gavin (Jacksonville, Fla.) finished 6-7-8, giving the Mocs twice as many swimmers in the A final as any other team.
They nearly had the same number of finalists in the 400-IM, where junior Morgan Burns (Hilton, N.Y.) set the school record in that event with her fourth-place time of 4:31.24. She broke the mark previously established by Rae-Lynn Sheffield at the Shark Invitational in 2011. It was the second night in a row a Moccasin broke a school record in an individual medley, with Ley doing it in the 200 on Thursday.
Junior Heather Burns (Lake City, Fla.) and freshman Jacinda Whittenburg (Lakewood, Colo.) had times that also bettered the old school record, and Heather Burns had actually broken the record earlier in the day during Friday morning's prelims. All three Moccasin swimmers in Friday night's finals hit NCAA "B" qualifying times too.
Florida Southern ended the day with 639 points, with Tampa (817) and Nova Southeastern (681) in first and second. The Moccasins were well ahead of fourth-place Rollins, which had 244 points.
Day three of the Shark Invitational gets underway Saturday morning with prelims at 10 a.m., and the finals are Saturday at 5 p.m.
