Gulliver girls win fourth swim title in row

The streak continues.

The Gulliver Prep girls’ team captured its fourth-consecutive Class 2A swimming and diving state championship on Friday at Sailfish Splashpark Aquatic Center.

Gulliver Prep racked up 317 points while winning seven events, which included four individual titles and three relays.

“To be honest, these swims were beyond what we expected,” said Gulliver Prep coach Chris George, who has been the head coach for two of the four titles. “This is the culture we set for our team. This is the expectations we set for ourselves. We still want to achieve more than we have. Winning seven of 14 events is great, and we would have definitely loved to win all of them, but this was great.”

Gulliver Prep came flying out from the start and won the meet’s opening race, the 200 IM with a 1:46.73 effort. They also won the 200 and 400 free relays later.

“It was important to set the pace and getting that win in the first event. It kind of hypes everyone up,” said Gulliver Prep junior Emily Cordovi, who swam the butterfly leg of the 200 IM. “It just set the tone for the rest of the meet.”

Cordovi also won the 100 butterfly -- achieving All-American status with a finish time of 53.86, and the 100 backstroke with a 55.19, a time which reached All-American consideration.

After the 200 medley relay, Gulliver came right back with a win in the girls 200 IM when Marcella Ruppert Gomez finished with a 2:06.53, giving the team 93 total points and a 42-point lead over second place Tampa Holy Names. She later won the 500 free with an All-American consideration time of 4:52.80.

American Heritage senior Catharine Cooper won the 50 free with an All-American consideration time of 23.53. It was her second consecutive 50-free state title.

“Going into the 50, it is my favorite event and my best event, I really just wanted to get out as fast as I could, finish as fast as I could and leave no room for error. I have really been working on the details of it, the turns under water, breakout and everything.”

Gulliver Prep boys finished second to Tampa Jesuit with 244 points. Jesuit ran up 271 and kept Gulliver from repeating as state champions.

Gulliver Prep boys won two relays — the 200 and 400 freestyles — and two individual events.

“I couldn’t have asked anymore from the guys. Every single one of them went a best time,” George said. “Everyone moved up in position. We just didn’t have the depth this year to pull through.”

Gulliver senior Miguel Cancel won the boys 200 IM with a 1:48.09, good for automatic All-American status. It was the third individual state title for the senior, and all three were All-American times. He also took first in the 100 free (44.50), another All-American time.

“It was a fun race (200 IM). I dropped time and I am happy with it. There was some good competition out there,” Cancel said.

St. Brendan’s Irvin Hoot won the 50 free with an All-American consideration time of 20.86.

In boys diving, Hudson Coldren (454.25) from Cardinal Gibbons finished second and Gulliver Prep sophomore Skylar Mignon (453.05) was third.

This story was originally published November 3, 2017 at 11:29 PM with the headline "Gulliver girls win fourth swim title in row."