FIT Swimmers Compete In New Year’s Eve Meet

By  //  January 1, 2013

Teams Await FIU Sprint Invitational

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA – Florida Tech men’s and women’s swim teams bid a final farewell to 2012 at the Ed Kennedy Invitational on Monday. The Panthers enjoyed more than a one-month layoff before the New Year’s Eve meet.

Jeni Ritter is the head swimming coach for Florida Tech. (Image courtesy Florida Tech)

“The meet was a lot of fun for the team,” head coach Jeni Ritter said. “It was an opportunity to do some fun sprint relays in a long course meter pool, which is not usually how we train.”

The meet was the first of two events for the Panthers during a two-week training trip to South Florida. The women’s team competed in five races during the meet, while the men’s team participated in six.

FIT kicked things off with the 200 Medley Relay where Shelby Pearce, Schelli Linz, Liana Soileau and Kristen Jones swam a time of 2:13.50. The men followed in the same event with a time of 1:56.23 as Sam Trible, Ross Donatelli, Zac Paryzek and Tyler Hemingway took to the pool.

The rest of the events included 200 and 150-meter relays of varying strokes including the 150 breaststroke relay and 150 butterfly relay.

The meet closed with the 400 freestyle relay, where Pearce, Laura Holty, Carmen Montalvo and Soileau made up the women’s team. The group finished with a time of 4:27.13.

The men closed things out as Hemingway, Sean Kohn, Paryzek and Trevor Eastin broke the four-minute mark with a time of 3:57.70.

“We hope that this week provides an opportunity for the team to not only get in some quality training, but also to come together as a team and get ready for the next several weeks of training in preparation for the Sunshine State Conference meet in February,” Ritter said.

The Panthers will return to action in 2013 with the FIU Sprint Invitational on Jan. 5. The Miami meet will begin at noon.

FIT will return to Melbourne the following day to play host to Mount Union at Panther Aquatic Center. This will be the first home meet since Nov. 17.