Tennessee Leads After Day 1 of Home Invite

Thursday, November 30

Knoxville, TN

10:00 AM

University of Tennessee

Tennessee Invitational: Day 1

November 30, 2017 | Swimming & Diving

Photo Gallery Day 1 Results

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Tennessee swimming and diving team won seven events and one school record fell Thursday to start the Tennessee Invitational at Allan Jones Aquatic Center.

Through one day of competition and 12 events, the Tennessee men lead the six-team field with 369.5 points followed by Penn in second with 247. The Tennessee women lead seven teams with 327 points with Duke the next team with 266.

The Vols got four wins on the men's side: Sam McHugh (200-yard individual medley), Kyle DeCoursey (50 freestyle), Colin Zeng (3-meter springboard) and the 400 medley relay. Tess Cieplucha (500 free) and Rachel Rubadue (1-meter springboard) provided individual wins before the Lady Vols finished with a victory in the 400 medley relay.

SOPHOMORE SUCCESS: Sophomore Tess Cieplucha put together a career-best performance in the 500-yard freestyle, dropping four seconds off her preliminary to post a time of 4:40.43, the second-fastest time in program history.

Sophomore Erika Brown rallied in the back half of the 50 freestyle final to take second in a school-record and automatic NCAA qualifying time of time of 21.50. She surpassed Madeline Banic's SEC title-winning time of 21.54 set last year.

In more sophomore success, Meghan Small hit the wall second in the 200 IM (1:55.47).

Tennessee closed out the women's session with a victory in the 400 medley relay as Micah Bohon, Katie Armitage, Erika Brown and Stanzi Moseley won in 3:31.48.

VETERAN WINS: Senior Sam McHugh delivered the Vols' first win on the men's side, winning the 200 individual medley by more than a second in 1:44.08. He had posted a preliminary time of 1:43.66.

Junior Kyle DeCoursey nearly pulled off a school record of his own in the men's 50 freestyle. He beat out Denver's Sid Farber at the wall with a career-best time of 19.18, just .04 off Barry Murphy's 2009 time.

Tennessee took second and third in the men's 500 freestyle with Marc Hinawi swimming in 4:19.09 followed by Taylor Abbott in 4:21.63.

The Tennessee squad of Matthew Garcia, Peter John Stevens, Ryan Coetzee and Kyle DeCoursey finished the night with a victory in the 400 medley relay (3:07.96)

DIVING SWEEP: Tennessee swept the diving competition on the first day. Junior Rachel Rubadue took first in the women's 1-meter springboard with a score of 276.50. On the men's 3-meter springboard, the Vols took three of the top five spots. Colin Zeng was first (408.40), followed by Will Hallam in fourth and Liam Stone in fifth.

FRIDAY'S SCHEDULE: Competition resumes Friday with swimming preliminaries at 10 a.m. and diving preliminaries at noon. The final session is at 6 p.m. Friday events include the 200 medley relay, the 400 IM, the 100 butterfly, the 200 freestyle, the 100 breaststroke, the 100 backstroke, the men's 1-meter diving, the women's 3-meter diving and the 800 freestyle relay.

QUOTES
Tennessee Head Coach Matt Kredich:
"We cleaned up quite a bit from the morning to the night. They did a professional job of reviewing their swims before coming back tonight. We clearly have a lot of things to work on, but there were some positives to take out of today. ... Kyle is somebody we lean on and rely on as a closer. He won a great race tonight against a great swimmer. That gave our team a shot for confidence and adrenaline. It was great to see him swim a great time. Erika, even though her close race went the other way and she got second instead of first, she set a school record. She dropped almost a second in one day, which in the 50 free is almost unheard of. It's exciting to see what she can do this year. She's working her way into that same position as Kyle."

Tennessee Diving Coach Dave Parrington:
"Rachel's a lot more experienced than Ana. That's how she won today; she used her experience. She actually dove a little better in practice before than she did in the prelims or finals. In competition, she was very solid. She made a couple mistakes but nothing major. She didn't panic and did a nice job. I was pleased with that."

"Colin was a model of consistency all day long. Tonight we threw a brand-new dive. His final dive was a front four-and-a-half, which is generally considered in the world of men's diving one of the tougher dives to do. We've been working on it in practice. I said to him after the prelims that he needed to do one this evening. It's a great opportunity. It will probably be a dive we use at night in finals when you have more energy going, more adrenaline. We went for it. It went for fives, which is fine first-time out. He was not super sharp yet. He's going to be a whole lot better, believe me."