1650 yard freestyle
With all of the focus on the heated battle between North Carolina and Virginia for the team title, Duke’s Ashley Twichell made sure that they had to at least share the spotlight. The senior kicked off the last finals session of the night with a win, and ACC Championship Meet record in 15:54.15, which eclipses the prior mark that she had nabbed in 2009 in a techsuit.
Virginia’s Katya Bachrouche was well back, but still earned important points for the Cavaliers with a second place finish in 16:09.09. Despite Virginia earning two swimmers in the top five (Anne Myers was 5th), but UNC’s depth in the event allowed them to further extend their lead. Katura Harvey was third in 16:11.25 in addition to the Tarheels nabbing two other top-8 finishers.
200 backstroke
North Carolina’s Carly Smith was phenomenal in this race. She swam a 1:53.08 that is an NCAA automatic-qualifying time, and after all of this weekend’s times post to the rankings will have her in the top ten swims in the nation this year. But just like the mile, the highest finishing swimmer amongst the two contending teams won the battle, but lost the war. Virginia had a total of four A-finalists in this race, which cut North Carolina’s lead in half. Among the most impressive of these finishes was Virginia’s secret weapon, Meredith Cavalier, whose previous career best was more than 8-seconds slower than her 1:54.27 time tonight. Cavalier has generally focused her efforts on the sprint freestyles and backstrokes, but with this swim may have found herself a new primary event. Kudos to coach Mark Bernadino for recognizing her potential in an event that she has not swum very often.
Behind Cavalier there was another sizable gap before the third place finisher: Florida State’s Stephanie Sarandos. Besides Cavalier, the next swimmer in a long line of great Cavalier 200 backstrokers (Mei Christensen won the 2009 and 2010 ACC Swimmer of the Year awards) is freshman Charlotte Clarke, who was fourth in 1:56.16.
100 yard freesyle
Virginia’s Lauren Perdue has had both highs and lows in this meet, and this 100 freestyle was likely the highest of the highs. She touched the wall in a career-best mark of 47.88, which broke her own ACC Conference Record of 48.10 that she set at last year’s ACC Championships. The second and third-place finishers in this race were Annie Fittin (48.79) and Megan Lafferty (48.92), both from Maryland.
The significance you’ll notice is that Rebecca Kane was outside the top three, and finished fourth in 49.26. In a meet that was still expected to be incredibly tight in the team scoring, the Tarheels blinked first with this falter. Thanks to getting four swimmers in the A-final, including champion Perdue, Virginia picked up 35 points on the Tarheels and zoomed into a double-digit lead.
200 yard breaststroke
After taking a solid blow in the 100 freestyle, North Carolina hit back hard in the 200 breaststroke with a 1-2 finish from Layne Brodie (2:10.56) and Laura Moriarty (2:10.91). Brodie jumped out to a solid body-length lead after 150 yards, but Moriarty roared back on the last lap. Stroke-by-stroke, Moriarty seemed to be reeling Brodie in, but the champ had juts enough to hang on for the victory. Moriarty looked to still have a touch left in the tank, and with another 25 yards could have probably touched in for the win.
Virginia was able to stem the tide a little bit thanks to a third-place finish of 2:11.97 from Kelly Flynn, but that wasn’t enough to stop North Carolina from vaulting back into the lead by 11 points.
200 yard butterfly
In the 200 yard butterfly, the third-to-last event of the meet, Virginia put the final “Naurath” in the coffin of North Carolina’s title hopes. Freshman Rachel Naurath took her first, of presumably many, ACC titles with a winning time of 1:55.88. The freshman stepped up and touched ahead of Virginia’s top two seniors , Liz Shaw and Claire Crippen, who were second and third, respectively, Shaw’s time was 1:57,85 (not her best time this year, expect her to be much faster at NCAA’s) and Crippen’s mark was 1:57.98. If this wasn’t enough, Riley Flanagan also finished fifth, giving the Cavaliers four of the top five finishers. North Carolina only had one scorer, an 11th place from Stephanie Peacock, and Virginia took a 50 point lead. With only diving, in which neither team is particularly strong, and a relay left, Virginia had effectively sealed the title barring a disqualification in the final relay.
Platform Diving
Duke’s Abby Johnston, who had won the previous two diving events, doesn’t compete in the platform. But that didn’t slow the Blue Devil diving machine down one bit, as freshman Haley Ishimatsu stepped in and took a commanding win in this event with a score of 351.65. Miami’s Carrie Dragland was second with an also solid score of 336.90, and Florida State sealed a third-place team finish with a bronze medal from Katrina Young in 299.95.
North Carolina got a 7th place finish from Jenna Moore and a 13th from Micah Arnold to bring the lead down to 34. Still an almost insurmountable lead for the Tarheels.
400 yard freestyle relay
Knowing that all they needed to win the ACC Championship was four legal starts, the Virginia women were very careful with their exchanges. This still did not prevent them from dominating the race in 3:15.68, which was just off of the ACC record. With senior Hannah Davis’ final touch into the wall, the party was on in Atlanta as the Cavaliers capped a four-peat of ACC titles. Davis, and her senior teammates, went their entire careers without losing an ACC Championship. Maryland, who has a very good squad that appeared to be worn down after a long week of competition, still put up an excellent time of 3:17.44 to take second. This is a group that will almost certainly score some points at NCAA’s. North Carolina finished the meet strong with a third place finish of 3:19.11.
Team Scores
We said yesterday that it was up to one team to overperform on the last day and take control of this meet, as these two teams are too strong for one group to just fall into a title. On this day, it was the Virginia Cavaliers who will go home with the trophy for the fourth consecutive year. The last diving event pushed Florida State just enough into the lead to take third place, ahead of Maryland in fourth.
1. Virginia 776
2. North Carolina 734
3. Florida State 417
4. Maryland 397
5. Virginia Tech 358
6. Miami 349
7. Duke 262.5
8. North Carolina State 159.5
9. Georgia Tech 152
10. Clemson University 151
11. Boston College 60
Riley Flanagan finished in 5th place for UVA in the 200 butterfly, not Addie Koelle. This swim came after competing in the finals of the 200 backstroke earlier in the night, not an easy combo in any meet, let alone an ACC Championship!
Good catch. Koelle actually swims for Maryland, and was 4th, I’ll correct it now.