Cieplucha Sets 400 IM Record on Day 2 of Invite

KNOXVILLE, TN - 2018.11.29 - Tennessee Invitational Day 1 Preliminary Session

Photo by: John Golliher/Tennessee Athletics

November 30, 2018 | Swimming & Diving

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The Tennessee swimming and diving team took home 13 wins in 16 combined events and broke a school record on day two of the Tennessee Invitational on Friday at Allan Jones Aquatic Center.

The Lady Vols finished with 920.5 points and seven wins, as Duke fell behind in second place with 716 points. The Tennessee men remained in first with 848 points and six more wins, with Penn coming in second with 480 points.

Junior Tess Cieplucha led the Lady Vols with the fastest time in program history in the 400-yard individual medley (4:03.81) and the third best time in the NCAA this year.

HOT OUT OF THE GATE: The Tennessee women took no time getting to the top of the leader boards, after taking each of the first six events in the evening. After a first-place finish in the 1-meter springboard competition by Rachel Rubadue (283.05), the Lady Vols took the 200 medley relay, the 400 medley relay, 100 butterfly, 200 freestyle and the 100 breaststroke to kick off the contest.

Erika Brown notched her second individual victory of the meet and her fourth team win before the end of day two. Brown finished out the meet with an impressive 800 freestyle relay (7:03.31) alongside Meghan Small, Cieplucha and Stanzi Moseley.

The Lady Vols winners included: Meghan Small, Nikol Popov, Brown and Madeline Banic in the 200 medley relay (1:36.33), Brown in the 100 butterfly (50.71), Stanzi Moseley in the 200 freestyle (1:45.09) and Popov in the 100 breaststroke (59.07).

REWRITING THE TOP 10: The upperclassmen duo of Matthew Dunphy and Matthew Garcia each set personal bests in the 100 breaststroke and 100 backstroke. Garcia's 45.96 in the 100 backstroke is the third-fastest mark in Vols history.

After recording a first place 1:33.52 time in the 200 freestyle, just one event later Joey Reilman reeled off a second-place finish in the 100 backstroke behind Garcia. The Tennessee men split the first two events to start the meet, but registered wins in the next five events to get them back on track.

Winners for the Vols' men included: Garcia, Dunphy, Braga Verhage and Kyle DeCoursey in the 200 medley relay (1:24.57), Verhage in the 100 butterfly (46.97), Dunphy in the 100 breaststroke (52.24), Garcia in the 100 backstroke (45.96) and Josh Walsh, Reilman, Hinawi and Andy Thomas in the 800 freestyle relay (6:26.44).

UP NEXT: The Tennessee Invitational concludes on Saturday with preliminaries starting at 10 a.m. and finals at 6 p.m. Events include the 1650 freestyle, 200 backstroke, 100 freestyle, 200 breaststroke, 200 butterfly and 400 freestyle relay. The platform diving competition (finals only) begins at 1 p.m.

QUOTES:
Dave Parrington, Diving Coach
"It was good to have Lily back today. She came through and bumped out her teammate to get in the final. Coming off of illness the past few days, it's good to see her step up and do that. Then she moved up tonight, which was even better. To see Rachel step up a spot tonight, I was very pleased. She was very consistent. A little miss on her third dive, but she's rounding into form, which was good to see.

"On the men's side, I was pleased with the result tonight. Of course, you'd like to see Colin win, but he got a little spooked on his third-round dive. We were doing an annoucerless event. He was going into his hurdle and heard a different sound that was going on. He could have appealed it then and there. He didn't do that in a timely fashion, so unfortunately that didn't happen. He came back strong. What was really good to see was his final dive, a front four and a half. It's a big, big dives. One of his competitors at NCAAs, Steele Johnson, went by him in the final using that dive. We didn't use it then because it wasn't one of Colin's stronger dives. This evening, he did two of those, which tells me we'll be using it at NCAAs and from now on. That was a huge thing for us to learn today. It will be a huge weapon in his arsenal."

Lance Asti, Associate Head Coach (Men)
"It was a rollercoaster of emotion. It was one of the first times all season that the first part of the session where we lost focus for the men. We had an event and a half, maybe two events, where we weren't completely dialed in. I thought they did a great job recentering and getting back on track and finished the session really well. Our guys are swimming a lot of events. We're not backing away from fatigue. We're going full blast after as many events as we can. They're handling that fatigue really well, but it was starting to show and give in a little to that fatigue. They did a good job in the second half of the session coming back."

Ashley Jahn, Associate Head Coach (Women)
"The team was great today. One of the things we wanted to focus on was making sure that we brought a lot of energy to the prelim session. That's always something with championship meets. The second morning can be really hard coming off of what we though was a great evening yesterday, making sure that you warm up well. It doesn't just happen. A lot of work goes into that preparation. We did a great job preparing this morning, which set them up for a great performance tonight. We had a lot of great swims. A lot more best times and more people who are going to head off to NCAAs in March."

Tennessee Invitational
Tennessee Winners (Friday)
Women
200 medley relay: Tennessee (1:36.33)
400 individual medley: Tess Cieplucha (4:03.81)
100 butterfly: Erika Brown (50.71)
200 freestyle: Stanzi Moseley (1:45.09)
100 breaststroke: Nikol Popov (59.07)
800 free relay: Meghan Small (7:03.31)
1-meter: Rachel Rubadue (283.05)

Men
200 medley relay: Tennessee (1:24.57)
100 butterfly: Braga Verhage (46.97)
200 freestyle: Joey Reilman (1:33.52)
100 breaststroke: Matthew Dunphy (52.24)
100 backstroke: Matthew Garcia (45.96)
800 free relay: Andy Thomas (6:26.44)