Oct. 30, 2009
| Coach Moody |
CLEMSON, S.C. – Friday’s swimming and diving meet with archrival Clemson came down to the last two events, but South Carolina came up just a hair short in dropping a pair of heartbreaking decisions to the Tigers at McHugh Natatorium. The women’s meet was a fight to the final relay with the Gamecocks falling 155-145. The men’s meet was decided in the next-to-last event as the Tigers won 160-140.
With two events to go, the Gamecock women held a 138-126 advantage after Carolina went 1-3-4 in 1-meter diving with Courthey Forcucci earning a sweep on the boards. Meanwhile, the men trailed by seven points after a 2-3-4 finish on the 1-meter board.
But the Tigers took first and second in the women’s 200 individual medley to pull within a point at 142-141 headed to the final relay. The Gamecocks’ team of Sharntelle McLean, Kristina Delp, Christine Thompson and Claire Thompson swam a strong 400 freestyle relay in 3:27.75 – a season-best performance by nearly two seconds – but fell short by just over a half-second as the Tigers took the victory.
On the men’s side, Clemson put the meet out of reach in the 200 IM with a 1-2 finish. But even with the meet decided, the Gamecock 400 free relay – James Crawford, Armin Hornikel, Bobby Cave and David Livsey – put together a strong closing performance with a time of 3:05.96, falling just three-hundredths of a second short of a victory.
Carolina kept the meet close with several wins throughout. The Thompson twins, Claire and Christine, provided big wins for the Gamecock women in all three of their individual events. Claire took first in both the 200 and 500 freestyle with times of 1:51.54 and 5:01.23, respectively, while Christine won the 1000 with a time of 10:10.79.
Freshman Whitney Avers got a big win, touching first in the 200 butterfly with a time of 2:05.33, and senior Sharntelle McLean won the 50 free in 23.78, one-hundredth of a second ahead of Clemson’s Meg Anderson. Junior Megan Sparks took first in the 200 backstroke with a 2:02.33.
Sophomore Armin Hornikel came up big for the Carolina men, winning both the 100 and 200 breaststroke with freshman Bobby Cave second in both races. Hornikel touched in 56.87 in the 100 and won going away in the 200 with a time of 2:05.91.
Freshman Michael Flach got wins in the 500 free in 4:34.19, and also took first in the 200 free with a time of 1:41.00. Fellow freshman Brooks Ross got a victory in the 1000 free with a time of 9:30.21.
Junior Courtney Forcucci earned wins for the Gamecocks in the diving well, scoring 288.67 in 1-meter and 333.53 in 3-meter. Allison Barr was second on the 3-meter board. For the men, the Gamecocks got runner-up finishes from Rylan Ridenour in the 3-meter board and Nikolas Sachs in the 3-meter event.
South Carolina’s men fell to 1-3, while the Gamecock women are now 0-4 on the season.
The Gamecocks will hit the road for the third straight meet next Friday, Nov. 6, as they travel to Tennessee for an SEC showdown.
