By Luis Barroso/Staff Writer
As the end of the season approaches the FIU Swimming team looks to face a very tough opponent in fellow Sunshine State rival, Florida Gulf Coast University this upcoming Saturday, Jan. 25. The Panthers look to stay on the right track as they are coming from a victory on Senior Day against Central Connecticut State University, a meet where FIU was able to sweep all 13 of the events to come up with a convincing 146-90 win over CCSU.
With this performance from last week against CCSU the Panthers also went on to sweep the weekly Conference honors, by being recipients of the C-USA Swimmer of the Week, as well as the C-USA Diver of the Week. Junior Courtney VanderSchaaf was awarded her first the Swimmer of the week honor with her performance over the Blue Devils, a performance which involved winning both of her events, the 50 freestyle that she capped off with a time of 24.67 seconds, as well as the 100 freestyle in which she recorded a time of 53.57.
On the other hand, senior Sabrina Beaupre took home the Diver of the Week award coming off an impressive performance on her Senior Day on the diving boards. This marks Beaupre’s third diving honor of the season. Sabrina also won both of her events the 1-meter and 3-meter diving, and setting a new program and pool record on the 1-meter diving board with a mark of 335.85, a score that tops her previous school record of 323.85 and the pool record that was previously set by Carrie Dragland of 326 in the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Center. On top of her record breaking performance on the 1-meter platform, Beaupre also went on to win the 3-meter event with a score of 330.67 for the Panthers.
These are some of FIU’s key to success this season, along with senior Sonia Perez Arau, freshman Lily Kauffman, freshman Jennifer Alfani, that have also won weekly of the week honors, but this is a team in which anyone can step up at any given week to give the surprise and lead the team to victory.
In the other side of the coin, Florida Gulf Coast University is a very tough opponent and will try to snap FIU’s winning streak, the Eagles have a very rich tradition on the swimming and diving events as they have won the last five CCSA Conference Tournament Titles in consecutive fashion(09-13). As well as having three olympians in the past two Olympics of 2008 and 2012. The Eagles are currently ranked the their highest program rank at No. 27 in the country according to CollegeSwim.com. They also have many weapons under their sleeve such as freshman Kira Toussaint on the back and freestyle, Junior Karen Vilorio on the back and IM events as well as many others.
The matchup has been changed from its usual meet place on FGCU to another location due to renovations on the FGCU Aquatic Center, an ongoing issue that has led the Eagles to cancel two January meets so far this season, but for the FIU meet, they have decided to relocate the event as well as change the hour from the original 11 a.m. start to a 2 p.m. start now. Nevertheless it will still be a clash of titans in the swimming pool for this two successful Universities.
This will mark the second to last meet for the Panthers before the C-USA Championships next month, a finish point where all looks will be directed to, but before that they will seek to beat another fellow local rival Florida Atlantic University for the second time this season.
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