By Brandon Wise/ Asst. Sports Director
brandon.wise@fiusm.com
Last season, Central Connecticut State came to FIU and defeated the Panthers 142-121. This time around, the Panthers wanted to make a statement and send their seniors out in style. They did just that, defeating the Blue Devils 174-120 in Miami on Jan. 14. Head Coach Randy Horner was very pleased with his squad’s performance.
“They really responded,” Horner said. “This is a team that beat us last year and we definitely wanted to come back and win our last home dual meet and build some momentum heading into the conference championships.”
The day got off to a bit of a rocky start for the Panthers, as they dropped the opening event, the 400-yard medley relay, by two seconds to the Blue Devils.
The Panthers bounced back and took the next three events before dropping the 100-yard breaststroke, 200-yard butterfly, and 50-yard freestyle to the Blue Devils.
However, they would get back on track, riding the showing of Sonia Perez-Arau. She won the first of her three events, the 1,000-yard freestyle, by a full 10 seconds over her next highest competitor, 10:30.25. Perez-Arau would go on to also take the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 2:03.52 and the 400-yard IM with a time of 4:33.66. Both events were won by at least eight seconds. Horner thinks the sky is the limit for Perez-Arau.
“She’s a great swimmer,” Horner said. “Her winning events in duals is sometimes secondary to what she’s doing time wise to possibly set herself up for nationals, she’s that kind of talent.”
Johanna Gustafsdottir also had a very good day in the pool. She won the 100-yard backstroke over Allison Rasile of Central Connecticut State by posting a time of 59:59. She would then go on to dominate the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 5:06.32 over Alex Czaplicki who came in second with a time of 5:14.35 for the Blue Devils.
In Diving, Sabrina Beaupre continued to dominate as she won both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving competitions with scores of 297.23 (1 M) and 305.18 (3 M).
After dropping the meet last season to the Blue Devils, Horner knew that this would be a good way to see how the program has progressed since then.
“You always want to beat teams that may have beaten you the previous year to show that improvement,” Horner said. “It’s a good measuring stick to where we are as a program.”
This was the final meet for seniors Elly James (Back/ IM), Kariann Stevens (Free/Butterfly), and Vicnan Torres (Free/ Butterfly). Horner felt the team did their part in sending the seniors out the right way.
“The whole team was swimming to send the seniors off as winners here in our last home meet.
About Post Author
