ATLANTA, GEORGIA (March 1, 2019) - FIU swimming and diving ends day three of the C-USA Championships with a 97 point lead and maintains the number one spot with 646.5 points.
The Panthers added four more gold medals to the collection and the divers swept the springboard for the second-straight evening.
The early preliminary session, on Thursday morning, was a slight foreshadow of how the final competition could unfold for the Panthers.
Kicking off with the 400 IM, freshman
Holly Shepherd and sophomore
Stephanie Hussey landed the number one and two seeds, respectively, during prelims. Shepherd, carried that momentum into the finals competition and walked away with her first conference gold medal. Her finals time of 4:15.27 also qualifies her for the NCAA B Standard. Hussey followed her lead and captured the silver medal with a time of 4:17.96.
In the 100 Butterfly event, sophomore
Sara Gyertyanffy seeded first during prelims and battled wire to wire for the silver medal in the evening with a time of 54.12. Almost 10 minutes later, she graced the podium again. The seasoned veteran took the number two spot in the 100 Breaststroke with a time of 1:00.98 and qualified for the NCAA B Standard. Junior
Carita Luukkanen touched at 1:01.07 for the bronze medal and also qualified for the NCAA B Standard.
If there is any way to close out a senior year, it's with four-straight gold medals in the 100 Backstroke event. Senior
Naomi Ruele left her mark at the McAuley center pool when she tapped in at 52.51 and won the hardware for the fourth time in her career.
The divers did what they do best and dominated the competition again. They capped the preliminary session with the number one, two, four, seven and eight seeds, but showed up with brooms to the evening session and tidied up for the sweep.
Freshman
Maha Gouda, initially seeded second, won the event with a score of 313.70 and captured her second gold medal of the championships. Junior
Brooke Bouchard stepped it up after a rough morning start, that ended in the number four spot. The Winnipeg, Manitoba native, grasped silver when she scored 285.25 points in the event.
Rachel Foord entered the final competition as the top seed and picked up the third podium spot with her score of 285.25. Junior
Brittany Haskell moved up to the number five spot with her score of 264.40 and freshman
Kaitlyn Fredericks followed closely with a score of 260.60 for the sixth-place finish.
After the divers housekeeping stunt, the Panthers made a loud statement, that closed out day three. FIU went on to capture a fourth gold medal, in the 400 Medley Relay. The team of Ruele, Luukkannen, Hussey and freshman
Helga Fodor battled wire to wire to fight off the competition. They tapped in at 3:36.49 besting the Rice Owls by 1.58 seconds and notched the second-fastest time for the event in program history.
Ahead of entering the fourth and final day of the competition, the 97 point advantage puts the Panthers in a very good position to secure their fifth-straight conference title.
For a look at the finals competition results click
here.
UP NEXT
The final day of the conference championships takes place tomorrow. Preliminary action is slated for 10:30 a.m. and finals will begin at 6 p.m.
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