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Lady Vol's Fall To Florida

Feb 7, 2001

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - The University of Tennessee women's swimming and diving team, ranked No. 22 in the Speedo America/ College Swimming Coaches Association poll, dropped its final dual meet of the season to the No. 7 University of Florida Lady Gators, 162-127, on Saturday afternoon.

Tennessee finishes the dual meet season with a 4-5 overall record and a 3-4 tally in the Southeastern Conference. With the victory, Florida moves to 12-2 overall and 5-2 in the SEC. The 4-5 tally for the Lady Vols marks only the second time in history that the team has finished the dual season below .500, with the only other instance coming in the 1993-94 season where the team also notched a 4-5 record.

There were some bright spots for the Lady Vols in the loss, however, including a pair of wins in the one-meter and three-meter diving competitions from sophomore Jaime Sanger. Other event winners for Tennessee were junior Valerie Conte in the 100y backstroke and senior Pam Hanson in the 200y back and the 200y individual medley, as well as Amber Fuller in the 100y fly and the 400y medley relay team.

"This was a disappointing performance for our team," Tennessee head coach Dan Colella said. "I thought that we were going to give the Lady Gators a tougher fight than we did. I think that we learned some things about ourselves at this meet and we will be better prepared at the conference championships for it. I hope that it turns out like three years ago when we suffered a big loss to Florida before the SECs and came back to put up a great fight at the conference meet."

To open the meet, Sanger notched a score of 289.35 in the one-meter diving to earn the win while scoring a season-best 300.75 to win the three-meter springboard later in the day.

In the pool, Hanson won both the 200y backstroke and the 200y individual medley in the final dual meet of her Lady Vol career. She won the 200y back in a time of 2:00.93 while taking the 200y IM in 2:05.14. Junior Valerie Conte also grabbed a win for the Orange and White as she was victorious in the 100y back with a time of 57.43, a season best, after Hanson and junior Bianca Jones were both disqualified at the start of the race.

Junior Monica Shannahan had a solid effort for Tennessee by earning valuable points with a pair of second-place finishes and one third-place mark. She took second in the 200y butterfly with a time of 2:02.82 while registering a mark of 1:06.23 to take second in the 100y breaststroke. She finished third in the 200y breast with a time of 2:22.88.

The Lady Vols earned three wins after Florida decided to exhibition the final three events. In addition to Hanson's win the 200y IM at the end of the meet, Fuller earned a win in the 100y fly in 57.51. The 400y freestyle relay team earned a win to end the competition with a time of 3:29.42 from the team of junior Laura Hancock, sophomore Bethany Hall, senior Azurdee Engel and senior Tanya Felton.

Tennessee will take a three-week break to train for the Southeastern Conference Championships, which will be held Feb. 21-24 in Tuscaloosa, Ala.