The IU men’s swimming team opened the season strong this weekend when it swept the Texas Longhorns and Florida Gators at the Counsilman Billingsley Aquatic Center.
The Hoosiers defeated the reigning national champion Longhorns 161.5-119.5 and proceeded to take down the Gators, who finished third at the NCAA championships last season, 182-99. On the women’s side, IU defeated Florida, 182-99, but came up short against Texas, 168-108.
“It’s an honor to have Texas and Florida to travel so far to get here,” IU Coach Ray Looze said. “That was just a thrill to have here on campus, and it doesn’t happen a lot.”
The IU men started off the meet by winning the 200-meter medley relay with a finishing time of 1:27.48. The relay was composed of sophomores Ian Finnerty and Vini Lanza, junior Ali Khalafalla and senior Bob Glover.
Looze said he was really impressed by the men’s team gave Texas and Florida all it had and said the team’s effort paid off.
“Kudos to the men’s team this weekend,” Looze said. “They won every meet they had against the reigning national champions and the team that got third. They really stepped up big time. I’m super proud of them, and there’s more in the tank. We won on Friday, and we surprised the rest of the teams, and then we came back out on Saturday and beat them again.”
Junior Blake Pieroni placed first in the men’s 200 freestyle and defeated NCAA champion and Olympian Townley Haas from Texas. Glover won the men’s 100 backstroke, and Finnerty won the 100 breaststroke.
Khalafalla continued to impress throughout the weekend by finishing first in the 50 freestyle. The men’s weekend performance was capped off by winning the 400 freestyle relay, in which the Hoosiers were represented by Khalafalla, seniors Anze Tavcar and Sam Lorentz, and Pieroni.
In the women’s 100 breast, sophomore and Olympic gold medalist Lilly King took first place. IU managed to place in the top three of every event, which led to its win against Florida. Looze said he was really proud of the women for separating themselves from Florida and competing so well against Texas.
Overall Looze said the whole team has been working on being the best versions of themselves that they can be. He said beating teams that are better than them is the stepping stone to improving and the team looks to get even better as the year goes along.
“Overall it’s a solid beginning. We have goals for the season and we want to keep the ball rolling,” Looze said.
Looze also said he’s really impressed with the team’s competitiveness, and he said he thinks they can compete at the highest level. Overall he said he was impressed with the meet and looks forward to improving each week.
“We have a tough schedule, and we want to develop more depth. We want to get some people healthy and be at our best. It was a really high-level meet.”
