FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Dec. 17, 2013) – FIU senior Sonia Perez won the Michael D. Fish Award for the top female swimmer at Nova Southeastern's Sharks Invitational on Tuesday. Perez tallied a total of 149 points over a four-day span, outscoring the next highest competitor by 37 points. The Panthers finished in second place overall with 1,213
team points.
"We had some solid swims today," said head coach
Randy Horner. "We learned a lot this week about our strengths and weaknesses. We came out of this a better team."
"Sonia was very deserving of the award this week," Horner continued. "She swam seven individual events and five relays, for a total of 6250 yards of racing over four days. She won two events, but finished no lower than third in any event. That's a great overall performance."
On Tuesday, Perez had two top three finishes, including a second place finish in the 200 backstroke and a third place finish in the 1650 freestyle. Perez's time of 17:17.83 was the fourth highest time for an FIU swimmer this year as well. In the 200 backstroke, she finished with a time of 2:04.17.
Senior
Mary Boucher also placed in the top 10 in the mile swim, as she earned a mark of 17:32.43. In addition to Perez and Boucher, junior
Courtney Vander Schaaf, sophomore
Becky Wilde, junior
Nadia Farrugia and sophomore
Sarah Smith all earned points for the Panthers in the event. Smith also posted a career-high time.
Qualifying for the finals and earning points for FIU in the 200 backstroke along with Perez were Wilde, freshman
Jennifer Deist, senior
Valeriia Popova and freshman
Jennifer Alfani. Over in the 100 freestyle, Deist, junior
Johanna Gustafsdottir and VanderSchaaf each qualified for the finals and earned points for the Panthers as well.
Gustafsdottir posted FIU's highest time in the 200 breaststroke, earning a mark of 2:21.89. Joining the junior were junior
Jean Madison, senior
Sarah D'Antoni and Andersson. Andersson's mark of 2:25.76 was a personal best for her.
FIU fared well in the 400 freestyle relay as well. Earning a third place finish was Alfani, Perez, Andersson and Gustafsdottir, who timed in at 3:31.66.
The Panthers will close out 2013 with a home meet against Georgia Tech on Thursday at 2 p.m. from the Aquatic Center at Biscayne Bay Campus.
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About FIU Athletics: FIU Athletics is home to more than 400 student-athletes in 18 different sports. Athletic events are played in seven different venues on FIU's campuses (Modesto A. Maidique and Biscayne Bay), including U.S. Century Bank Arena and Alfonso Field at FIU Stadium.
About FIU: Florida International University is recognized as a Carnegie engaged university. Its colleges and schools offer more than 180 bachelor¹s, master¹s and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, international relations, architecture, law and medicine. As one of South Florida¹s anchor institutions, FIU is Worlds Ahead in its local and global engagement, finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission. FIU has awarded 200,000 degrees and enrolls 50,000 students in two campuses and three centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell and the Miami Beach Urban Studios. FIU is a member of Conference USA and has 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu/.
