Kentucky Wraps Day One of Tri Meet
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Kentucky swimming and diving team wrapped up day one of its two-day tri meet inside the Lancaster Aquatic Center on Friday night. Between the men’s and women’s squads, Kentucky combined for nine first-place finishes on the day.
The No. 15 Kentucky women lead Toledo, 124-25, but trail 13th-ranked Ohio State, 79-71. The Wildcat men are ahead of 18th-ranked Ohio State in a tightly-contested matchup, 76-74.
“It was a really good day for teams,” said head coach Lars Jorgensen. “I thought Asia Seidt was awesome with the women, her 100 free was outstanding. Ali Galyer was really good, but it was really a team effort. On the guys, Jason Head, Glen Brown, our divers sweeping 1-2-3 was outstanding. Tomorrow’s a big day. I think both meets are pretty even between the women and the men. Ohio State’s a really good team, so they’re going to be coming out fighting and hopefully we’ll give them a good race.”
On the men’s side, senior Isaac Jones picked up the first victory of the day, winning the 1,650 freestyle with a time of 15:16.04. His time was more than 12 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher.
A big performance on men’s 3-meter resulted in a 1-2-3 sweep for Kentucky, led by freshman Chase Lane who recorded a personal-best score of 384.30. Sophomore Kevin Frebel was second in the event with a 351.15 and senior Stephen Jou third with a score of 340.75.
“Today we had a pretty good performance,” said head diving coach Ted Hautau. “They bounced back great. Went 1-2-3 on 3-meter, so we swept there. Chase Lane, a freshman, I think he went a personal best by over 50 points on 3-meter which is a huge improvement.”
Three sophomores from the men’s team picked up wins on Friday. Connor Blandford earned a victory in the 200 backstroke, touching the wall with at time of 1:48.23. Jason Head went 45.04 in the 100 freestyle to edge out Ohio State’s Nathan Christian by .03 seconds. Glen Brown rounded out the UK victories, winning the 200 breaststroke in 2:00.63.
The women’s team saw its first win of the night from Ali Galyer in the 200 backstroke. The sophomore turned in a time of 1:54.44, just ahead of her teammate Bridgette Alexander who was second in 1:56.93.
Sophomore Asia Seidt picked up a big win in the 100 freestyle, going an NCAA ‘B’ cut time of 49.24.
Kentucky continued to see success in the women’s breaststroke events as freshman Bailey Bonnett led the Wildcats in a 1-2-3 sweep of the 200 breast. Her time of 2:11.94 earned the win, ahead of sophomore Madison Winstead (2:14.4) and senior Morgan Belli (2:16.79).
To close the night, Kentucky’s ‘A’ relay team of Galyer, Seidt, Winstead and Freriks won the 400 freestyle relay in 3:20.07. UK’s ‘B’ relay of Alexander, Bonnett, Meredith Whisenhunt and Haley McInerny finished third with a time of 3:25.95.
UK will be back in action Saturday inside the Lancaster Aquatic Center. Events are slated for a 9 a.m. start time.
For the latest on the Kentucky swimming and diving program, follow @UKSwimDive on Twitter, on Facebook at Facebook.com/UKSwimDive, and on the web at UKathletics.com.
