SwimCats stroke to fifth place in final fall meet

On Saturday, Nov. 5, the Georgia College SwimCats were on the road at Florida State University to compete with other area schools in their last meet of the 2011 season.  

The SwimCats placed third overall in the competition, with the men placing third and the women fourth.

There were four other teams present at this competition: University of Central Florida, Florida State University, University of Georgia and University of Southern Florida.

All the teams that competed were representing their schools strictly as club teams.

Stephen Hogan, junior business marketing major and vice president of the SwimCats, was pleased with the results of this weekend’s competition.

“As a team we placed third, which was pretty good because the two top teams had 100-plus people, and we only brought 20,” Hogan said.

This weekend Hogan swam the 50 yard freestyle, 50 yard butterfly, 50 yard backstroke, 100 yard freestyle and the 200 yard freestyle as individual events. He also swam the 200 yard medley relay, and the 200 yard free relay. Hogan placed fifth on the 50 yard butterfly.

Ansley Campbell, senior psychology major and president of the SwimCats, was pleased with her personal performance at the competition.

“I swam the 100 individual medley, 100 free, 50 free, 200 medley relay, 200 free relay and 400 free relay,” Campbell said. “I did pretty well this weekend. I met all of my usual times.”

Junior early childhood education major and secretary of the SwimCats, Katie Breitenbach also swam the 100 individual medley, 100 free, 50 free, 200 medley relay, 200 free relay and 400 free relay.

Many of the SwimCats placed top 10 within their events. Some of the men that placed in the top 10 include: freshman Anton Shkuratov, junior Colin Phillips and freshman Bryan Youngblood. Junior Anne Kennedy, freshman Jillian Lisiakowski and freshman Kara Demkowski all placed in the top 10 for the women of the SwimCats.

“All of these individuals did excellent at this past meet. We have a really strong team this year, and well rounded,” Hogan said.

This meet marked the end of the SwimCats season for the semester. The team will practice until Thanksgiving and then resume practices in January.

“Some of these swimmers broke their own best times or our team’s best times,” Campbell said.

Hogan believes that the team has a bright future ahead of it.

“This team has a lot of talent,” Hogan said. “There were many records broken this semester, and there are many more to be broken with this team. This was our last meet of this semester, but we will keep training to prepare for next semester’s meets, including a meet at the new Wellness Center that we will try to get students to come out and cheer us on.”

Campbell encourages anyone interested in joining the team or swimming to contact her. For more information consult the SwimCats Facebook page, “SwimCats SwimClub.

Posted by Brennan Meagher on Nov 10 2011. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.