Feb. 20, 2013
COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The Kentucky men’s swimming team found historic success on Day 2 of the 2013 Southeastern Conference Swimming and Diving Championships. Lucas Gerotto, Tripp Crosthwaite and Travis Green each had swims that would put them high in the UK record books for many years to come.
“We had some great swims on the men’s side especially,” said UK head swim coach Gary Conelly. “Travis Green went fourth-best ever in the 500-freestyle while Tripp and Lucas broke team records in the 200-IM.”
Green’s career-high time of 4:21.47 puts him fourth all-time in Kentucky history in the 500-freestyle event and earned the senior 15th place, scoring points for the Wildcats.
Later in the evening, Gerotto and Crosthwaite touched the wall consecutively to each break the UK men’s all-time record in the 200-individual medley. Gerotto’s time of 1:47.20 puts him a top the list in the Kentucky record books, while his senior teammate Crosthwaite now sits in second all-time at 1:47.25.
Gerotto’s and Crosthwaite’s swims were good enough to give them top-20 performances on the night to add to UK’s tally while junior Will Heidler also earned a point for the Wildcats with a 24th place finish in the event with his time of 1:49.83, which is good for sixth all-time in school history in the 200-IM.
While the men started the second day of action off strongly, it was the women who capped it off on the backend.
Freshman diver Rebecca Hamperian rallied her way into the finals of the 1-meter springboard event Wednesday morning in the preliminaries. She was the lone Wildcat to make it to the finals in the event, and she did it in impressive fashion.
“Rebecca Hamperian made an awesome run on her last two dives of the preliminaries to get into the final,” said UK diving coach Ted Hautau. “Which is great to see in a freshman and shows her growth over the course of one season.”
Hamperian finished the night in eighth place with a 283.85.
To close out the evening, the team of Laura Dawson, Megan Eppler, Mandy Myers and Christina Bechtel earned UK’s best relay performance of the SEC Championships thus far. In the 200-freestyle relay, the foursome earned eighth place with a time of 1:32.06 to earn big points for the women’s team heading into the third day of events
After two days of action on the campus of Texas A&M, the Kentucky men sit in 10th place (119), while the women hold on to ninth place (194) at the 2013 SEC Championships. Day 3 action begins at 11 a.m. ET. Thursday’s list of events is as follows:
Thursday, Feb. 21
400 IM (prelims)– 10 a.m.
100 Fly (prelims)
200 Free (prelims)
Diving: Men’s 3-meter (prelims) — 1:30 p.m.
400 IM (finals) — 6 p.m.
100 Fly (finals)
Diving: Men’s 3-meter (finals)
200 Free (finals)
