Florida Swim and Dive Posts Record Showing at SEC Championships
The Gators opened the 2026 SEC Swimming and Diving Championships off strong.
Competing on boards on Monday, freshman Jesus Agundez Mora stood out with a top-five finish in his SEC debut.
Florida men’s divers Agundez Mora, junior Conor Gesing and sophomore Jesus Gonzalez all scored in one-meter dives. Mora’s fifth-place finish awarded the team 25 points, but they did not stop there. Gessing secured the team 23 points when he landed a seventh-place finish, and Gonzalez topped off the day for the Gators with five points, and a 20th-place finish.
Considering only the top eight divers get to advance to the championship finals, hopes were low when the trio each fell outside the top eight spots halfway through the preliminary round. Gesing, however, turned on the heat entering the final round of preliminaries.
At that point, Gesing stood in 11th place but responded with a 73.90 score on his final dive to accumulate a score of 344.95 overall and tie for fourth place. Agundez Mora entered the round right above Gesing, sitting at 10th place. In his final dive, he delivered a score of 67.20 to advance to eighth place, and the two advanced to the finals.
Gesing entered the SEC A finals in fourth place just as he did last season, before he went on to win the men’s one-meter diving title. Gonzalez had also made it to the A finals last season, seated in fifth-place and finished the tournament in sixth place overall.
This season, however, Gonzalez gave up his stop in the finals to Agundez Mora. Compared to last season when three Gators qualified for finals with the third being now graduated Peyton Donald, two qualified this year.
“I really think we are in peak form right now. We just weren’t able to put it all together in the final, which kept us off the podium,” expressed head dive coach Bryan Gillooly. “But if we can maintain this level and keep doing what we’re doing, things will fall into place.”
The Gators now stand tied for second with Texas at 53 points, while Tennessee leads the games at 98 points. Trailing Florida is Auburn not far behind with 41 points.
Day two – Gator men’s swimming set a NCAA relay record
The Gators made history Tuesday when junior Johnny Marshall, senior Koen de Groot, junior Scotty Buff and senior Josh Liendo touched the wall in the men’s 200 medley relay at 1:20:03 to win the SEC title and set an NCAA record.
Florida’s freshman Ahemed Jaouadi and redshirt junior Ahmed Hafnaoui both stood on the podium after their one-mile swim performances.
Jaouadi won the event to take gold and became the 19th Gator in history to win the event. He touched for a time of 14:25.14, setting the pool record and claiming the second-fastest time in Florida history.
Hafnaoi took the bronze with a time of 14:30.74, and recorded the third-fastest time in the event in Gators history. The fastest mile time in program history was in 2020, when three-time Olympic gold medalist Bobby Finke came in at 14:12:08.
The Gators totaled 107 points in the mile swim, thanks in part to senior Gio Linscheer taking 10th place, and sophomore Luke Corey claiming 19th place.
Florida’s women secured points with their relay performances, a key point of focus throughout the lead up to the postseason. In the 200-medley, the team of Caite Choate, Anita Bottazzo, Beatriz Bezarra, and Lainy Kruger placed seventh with a final time of 1:35.81.
Kruger also competed in the 800-freestyle relay, alongside Julie Brousseau, JoJo Ramey, and Sylvia Statkevicius, and the Gators broke into the top five. Their fourth-place finish (6:59.86) marks the ninth-fastest time in program history for the event.
Michaela Mattes, Camille DeBoer, and Brousseau represented Florida in the women’s mile, where Mattes led the way for the Gators. With a time of 16:07.98, she locked in a fourth-place finish, followed by DeBoer in sixth and Brousseau in 19th.
With the top-16 divers moving to the finals, Camyla Monroy and Alexa Fung advanced following their performances in the women’s one-meter preliminaries. Fung’s night ended with a 13th-place finish in the consultation final. As for Monroy, she conceded her SEC title from last season, falling to eighth place in the finals.
At the day’s close, the Gators were sitting pretty in the team standings. As of now, the men lead the pack with 274 points while the women, in second with 190 points, trail Texas by 42.
The roundup of points from the individual events was critical to Florida’s success on day two, going eight-for-eight with swimmers earning points in the mile event. The team aspect of the sport really shines through in times like this, and though there’s plenty of competition left, the Gators have already made waves competing against some of the nation’s best.
Category: Gator Sports, Gators Swimming and Diving, SEC
