The swim team got several great performances Friday at the Husky Invitational hosted by the of at the in The meet featured several top D-I teams, allowing to face its toughest competition of the year.
Chris Coley, the 2006 D-II national champion in the 100 butterfly, qualified for nationals in the same event. Coley swam 50.00 to finish 21st and make the C final, but more importantly reach the D-II "A" standard. Coley posted a time of 50.64 seconds in the evening finals to finish in 23rd place in the event.
Sophomore Doug Djang joined Coley as a national qualifier as he swam the 100 breaststroke in a time of 57.17 to finish 19th and achieve the "A" standard. Djang lowered his time in the evening final to 56.63 seconds to post a 18th place finish overall.
In the first men's event of the evening session, Bryson Chiu, Djang, Coley, and Bryant Bevers finished in 6th place in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:32.82, qualifying Chiu and Bevers for the Division II National Championships in Missouri in March. Chiu finished in 23rd place in the 400 IM final in a time of 4:08.47 and 16th in the 100 backstroke in 52.70 seconds, both "B" cuts which will enable him to compete in those events at the national meet.
Also swimming well for was Francesca Reale, who achieved the "B" Standard in the 100 backstroke by swimming a time of 59.05 seconds. In the evening final she finished in 19th place with a time of 59.13 seconds.
Swimming her top time of the year in the 100 butterfly preliminaries was Alex Weiss, who stopped the clock at 59.69 seconds. She followed up with a time of 59.89 seconds in the final, finishing in 31st place.
Gordon Smith continued to lower his top time of the year in the 200 freestyle, swimming in 1:41.82 in the preliminaries and 1:41.52 in the finals, good enough for 26th place. However, Smith is still off the "A" qualfiying standard of 1:40.99. Smith nearly qualified for the national meet by leading off Seattle's 800 freestyle relay, but the group of Smith, Bevers, Nathan Freeman, and Coley missed the qualifying mark by 57/100ths of a second, touching the wall in eighth place with a time of 6:52.76.
After two days and 30 events, the men are in eighth place with 222 points, while the women find themselves in 11th place with 126 points. Michigan is dominating the men's competition with 1,133.5 points, nearly 400 points more than second-place California. Meanwhile, USC has taken the lead in the women's competition with 899 points, 68 points ahead of Washington.
The Husky Invitational continues Saturday, Dec. 1, with another round of preliminaries beginning at 9:30 in the morning and finals starting at 6:00 in the evening.