Melbourne, Fla. – The Florida Tech women's swimming team concluded the eighth annual Panther Invite on Sunday at the Panther Aquatic Center with prelims in the morning and finals in the evening.
As a team, Tech finished the meet in second place with 835 points, behind only Indian River State's 1,281.50. Florida Southern took third with 786.50, Rollins and St. Thomas tied for fourth with their 661.50 points and Barry rounded out the field with 127.
Katherine Helminiak made it three wins in three days, starting off the evening session by winning the 1650 Final with a 17:15.20 time that was nearly eight seconds ahead of the closest competition.
Elizabeth Brewer (18:02.34) earned fifth in the event while
Leah Fonnotto took 18:47.38) took 14
th.
Debora Xavier (52.58) and
Maja Malarz (52.94) took fourth and fifth place in the 100 Free A Final.
The 200 Back A Final would see seventh and eighth place finishes respectively for
Alex Knodel (2:08.62) and
Torie Whitbeck (2:10.00).
Samantha Bullard grabbed eighth in the 200 Fly A Final with a 2:09.99 time.
The 400 Free relay team of Helminiak, Malarz,
Brieleigh Wescott and Xavier set a new school record, with their 3:28.98 time earning them second place. That time breaks the previous record of 3:30.35 set at the 2020 Sunshine State Conference Championships by
Nicole Rautemberg, Emma Oleniczak, Kennedy Nolan and Savannah Brennan.
Coaches' Corner:
Head Coach David Dent on the team's overall performance this weekend: "We loaded up the fall with a lot of meets just to see how they would respond to the back-to-back-to-back and, and we wanted to challenge them to try to get better every week. We would make it a focus in practice too, think about what you did in your swims this previous week, and what we need to focus on going forward to make those swims better. And we did that here, but we also are gonna go back to the drawing board on some things that we need to clean up, so that hopefully come Conference [championships] we're all swimming as best we possibly can and cleaned up all those little details that we might have missed here."
On the mood of the team following the season's signature event: "They're hungry for more. They got second to Indian River, who are the best JUCO team in the country. They beat Rollins and Florida Southern, who are teams who usually beat us year in and year out at a conference meet. To come out here, not even let them faze us, do what we did and come in second place was really fun."
On Katherine Helminiak's outstanding performances this season: "This is Kate's third year here and I think this year, we finally figured out the training program for her to help her get as good as she possibly can and the times are starting to show because of that. She had quite a few best times this week, and she's on pace to break some more school records and pretty much punch her ticket to NCAAs already. That's something we were thinking we might do last year and we ended up doing it, but the fact that we already did it now, we've found that training for Kate and I think she's going to continue to take off to a whole new level that we haven't seen."
UP NEXT:
The Panthers will be back in the pool on Friday December 15
th for a dual meet with SCAD-Savannah at the Panther Aquatic Center.
For the latest news, updates, and information on the Florida Tech men's swimming team, visit FloridaTechSports.com. Fans can also stay up to date on the latest Panthers news by following Florida Tech Athletics on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
