NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Mercedes Traba set a new Vanderbilt school record in the 1,000 freestyle while finishing second in two events, although the Commodores fell to Auburn Friday, 185-56, at the Centennial Sportsplex in the first home meet of the season.
“It was good to be at home, we saw some good things today,” Commodore head coach Jeremy Organ said. “Over the last two weeks we’ve done some good, hard work, that fatigue started to show in several races. But even with that, there were some strong finishes to some of our races, you could see that we were trying to battle and compete; I like to see that. We saw great swims from Mercedes today, it was fun to see that here in our pool.
“Now we can reload as we head into fall break and go down to North Florida and have a good meet down there.”
Meet Highlights
-Traba placed second in both the 500 and 1,000 freestyle.
-Faith Knelson finished fourth in the 100 breastroke.
-Kailia Utley added a fourth-place result in the 200 butterfly.
Notes
-This was the Dores’ first home meet of the season.
-It was the first time Vanderbilt and Auburn have competed since 2014.
-Traba’s 10:04.12 time in the 1,000 freestyle was over five seconds faster than the previous mark set by Erika Deardorf in 2011, and it also shaved almost 10 seconds off her best performance in the event entering the meet.
-She also touched the wall nearly five seconds faster than the time she recorded in the Dores’ season-opening meet with a 4:57.90 mark in the 500 freestyle.
-Ellie Taliaferro finished in 1:52.95 in the 200 freestyle, less than a second from moving into the top 10 in the event on Vandy’s all-time performance list.
-Her 24.08 mark in the 50 freestyle was the best by a Vandy swimmer so far this fall.
-Karsyn Cook set new season bests in the 50 freestyle and in the 100 fly.
-Alina Stout’s marking in the 200 backstroke was the fastest by a Commodore in the event this season.
-Ryen Bosuro led the Dores with a season best performance in the 100 freestyle.
-Kendall Hall’s time in the 500 freestyle was more than five seconds quicker than her collegiate debut in the event at LSU.
The Commodores will return to action with a dual meet against North Florida and Georgia Southern in Jacksonville, Florida, on Oct. 15 at 11 a.m. CT.
