Akerfelds leads Lady Vol swimmers

Freshman Aleksa Akerfelds finished off the Tennessee Lady Vols' performance in the Hoosierland Open Invitational swim meet at Bloomington, Ind., with an exclamation point Saturday.

Akersfelds set a personal best with second-place finish in the 1650 freestyle. Her time of 16 minutes, 35.12 seconds met provisional qualifying standards for the NCAA championships.

The meet concluded the Lady Vols fall season on a high note.

"We have had a very good fall season," ehad coach Matt Kredich said. "I am looking forward to some solid, uninterrupted training for the next six weeks."

The Lady Vols also took a second in the 400 freestyle relay. The quartet of Christine Magnuson, Brittany Nauta, Katie Gehring and Carly Mathes came in at 3:22.0 to also make the provisional cut for the NCAAs.

The foursome of Brooke Boncher, Morgan Farrell, Ashley Quinn and Tricia Weaner took seventh in that race in a time of 3:30.77

Freshman Morgan Farrell was seventh in the 200 backstroke in 2:04.17. Magnuson was fifth in the 100 freestyle, with an NCAA provisional qualifying time of 50.24.

In that 100 race, Mathes registered a season best 50.92 in the consolation finals.

"We did not prepare well or swim well this morning," Kredich said. "But we did a nice job of coming back tonight witht he energy and passion that we expect from Tennessee swimmers.

"Aleksa's mile set the tone fo the night," he said. "We won some races and had some great swims in the remainder of the finals."

Sarah McCall took 11th in the 200 breaststroke in 2:21.76.

The Lady Vols head into winter training with a No. 8 ranking by the College Swimming Coaches Association of America and a 3-1 dual meet record.

Soccer: The two-games-in-three-days format of the women's NCAA soccer tournament leaves little time for dwelling on success.

The Lady Vols (14-4-2) righted a late-season slide by beating Furman 2-0 in the first round of the NCAAs on Friday at Regal Soccer Stadium.

Today, they play Clemson, a 4-2 winner over Charlotte in Friday's other game, in a 2 p.m. match at Regal.

"When it comes to tournament time you compete, you survive and you move on," Lady Vols head coach Angela Kelly said. "We have to be able to play at a championship level, which means making the minimum amount of touchdes and letting the ball do the work. We must do a better job of that."

Clemson heads into the game at 10-5-5.

The Lady Vols' win over Furman came after making a first-round exit from the SEC championships with a 2-0 loss to South Carolina.