Duke vs Queens University of Charlotte
- Friday, January 12th
- Hosted by Queens University of Charlotte
- 25 Yards
- Dual Meet Format
- Results
Team Scores
- Women: Duke 158 – Queens 103
- Men: Queens 139 – Duke 123
Duke University and Queens University of Charlotte returned to competition Friday for a dual hosted by Queens. The Duke women won the competition with a commanding 55-point spread, though the Duke men were bested narrowly by 16 points.
The Duke women won 11 of 14 events at Friday’s dual, mirroring the men’s squad from Queens, ranked number 1 in Division II, which also won 11 of the 14 events.
Duke’s Connie Dean helped the Blue Devil women to an early victory in the 200 medley relay, splitting a 29.20 on the breaststroke. Dean later won the 100 breaststroke in a 1:04.00 and the 200 breaststroke in a 2:18.85. In both races, Dean relied on her back-half speed and endurance to hold off swimmers from Queens. Notably, Dean negative-split the middle 100 of her 200 breaststroke, going 35.87 on the second 50 and 34.93 on the third 50. Dean also took third in the 200 IM (2:06.28).
Verity Abel also won two individual events for the Duke women, clocking a 10:06.53 to win the women’s 1000 by 3 seconds, and a 4:59.27 in the 500, barely out-touching teammate Brittany Kampfer who took second in 4:59.95. Abel also finished second in the 200 freestyle with a 1:52.07, fully one second behind Queens’ Josephina Lorda, who won in 1:51.01.
Duke’s Lizzie Devitt won the 200 backstroke (2:00.81), 200 IM (2:02.73) and was runner-up in the 100 backstroke (57.26), behind teammate Maddie Hess (55.58), who also took second to Devitt in the 200 backstroke (2:02.25).
The Queens women finished the meet with a 2.5-second victory in the 400 freestyle relay, touching 3:26.43 to the Duke ‘A’ team’s 3:28.93.
Nicholas Arakelian won three individual events for Queens, in addition to helping the Royals’ 200 medley relay to victory with a 24.51 breaststroke split. Arakelian’s other victories came in the 100 breast (55.32), 200 breast (2:02.26), and 200 IM (1:50.49). In the IM, Arakelian split a 30.78 on the breaststroke, making him one of only two swimmers in the field to split sub-32-seconds on that leg of the race. Duke’s Judd Howard split a 30.85 on the breaststroke, but fell too far behind on the backstroke (30.94 to Arakelian’s 27.70) to make up the ground, and finished third (1:53.90), also behind Duke teammate Sheldon Boboff (1:53.81).
Paul Pijulet also picked up two individual event titles for Queens, winning the 100 backstroke in a 47.75 and the 200 backstroke in a 1:46.41. Pijulet also led off the 200 medley relay, clocking a 22.41 in the 50 backstroke to give Queens a narrow lead over Duke. Pijulet capped off the meet by helping the Royals to victory in the 400 freestyle relay.
Swimming second, Pijulet split a 44.23 and then handed off to Ben Mayes, who followed suit to split a 43.39, giving the relay enough steam to break 3-minutes and finish in 2:59.62, more than four seconds ahead of Duke’s ‘A’ team, which touched in 3:03.90. The fastest split of the race came from Duke’s Miles Williams with a 43.60 while swimming third on the Duke men’s ‘B’ team, which finished third in 3:04.45.
Though the Duke men only won three events, their depth kept the meet close. Of the 11 events Duke lost to Queens, the Blue Devils nonetheless finished either 2-3 or 2-3-4 in each of those races.
Press Release – Queens (Men):
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The No. 1 Queens University of Charlotte men’s swimming team won 11 of 14 events in Friday’s dual meet with NCAA Division I Duke University in the Levine Center.
The relay team of Paul Pijulet, Nicholas Arakelian, Marius Kusch and Dmytro Sydorchenko won the first men’s event of the day, the 200-yard Medley Relay, with a time of 1:28.13.
After the Blue Devils won the meet’s next two races, Pijulet reached the wall in 47.75 to take gold in the 100-yard backstroke. The Paris, France native also won the 200-yard Backstroke, finishing with a time of 1:46.41, more than six seconds faster that the next closest competitor.
Arakelian was three-time individual winner on the evening, taking first in the 100-yard Breaststroke (55.32), the 200-yard Breaststroke (2:02.26) and the 200-yard I.M. (1:50.49). His final two wins each came by three-second margins.
Kusch also won three events, claiming gold in the 200-yard Butterfly (1:47.28), 100-yard Freestyle (44.48) and the 100-yard Butterfly (48.05), while freshman Hendrik Faber won the 500-yard Freestyle with a time of 4:31.29, more than four seconds ahead of Duke’s Zach Washart.
“Our men were determined to race head-to-head with a program like Duke,” said Queens Associate Athletic Director for Strategic Planning and Leadership Development/Director of Swimming Operations Jeff Dugdale. “Our program has the utmost respect for Coach Dan Colella and his programs. We are excited to win a meet versus such a quality program.”
Press Release – Queens (Women):
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The second-ranked Queens University of Charlotte women’s swimming team hosted NCAA Division I Duke University on Friday night inside the Levine Center. The Royals picked up three wins and eight runner-up finishes in the meet against the Blue Devils.
“I was impressed with our women’s tenacity and willingness to step up and race a Top 20 Division I program,” said Queens Associate Athletic Director for Strategic Planning and Leadership Development/Director of Swimming Operations Jeff Dugdale.
The first of the Royals’ three victories came in the 200-yard Freestyle as junior Josefina Lorda-Taylor finished with a time of 1:51.01 to Duke’s Verity Abel by more than a second.
Sophomore Wanda Dollmayer picked up Queens second win in the 50-yard Freestyle (23.20), while Queens’ final victory came in the 400-yard Freestyle Relay. The relay team of Shelly Prayson, McKenzie Stevens, Alexandra Marshall and Kyrie Dobson finished with a time of 3:26.43 in the race.
Stevens had three of the Royals eight second place finishes in the meet, taking silver in the 200-yard Butterfly (2:00.35), the 100-yard Freestyle (51.26) and the 100-yard Butterfly (56.23). Her final time in the 200-yard Butterfly was just .08 off the pace of race winner Isa Paez.
Press Release – Duke:
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The Blue Devil swimmers returned to action for the first time in 2018 Friday evening, taking on the reigning NCAA Division II national champions in Queens University of Charlotte. The Duke teams split action with the Royals, as the women came away with a 158-103 victory and the men were defeated by a narrow 139-123 margin.
“This was one of the closest meets we’ve swum in quite some time on the men’s side,” said head coach Dan Colella. “We’re really proud of the way the guys stood up and raced. Our congratulations to Queens on a meet really well swum. We saw some really great performances from both teams. Just a really exciting meet from start to finish. It went down to the last relay and the score hung within a few points throughout the evening. The energy on the sidelines was an all-time high. It was a great way to kick off the semester.”
The Blue Devil women featured a quartet of double individual event winners on the night in freshman Connie Dean and seniors Verity Abel, Lizzie Devitt and Leah Goldman.
Dean swept the breaststroke events, taking the 100-yard race at 1:04.00 for a season-best mark and followed up that performance with a 2:18.85 clocking in the 200 breaststroke. Abel claimed the 500 (4:59.27) and 1,000 freestyle (10:06.53) and Goldman led the way for Duke in the 100 freestyle (50.60) and 100 butterfly (54.87). Devitt added first-places finishes in the 200 backstroke (2:00.81) and the 200 individual medley (2:02.73).
Junior Maddie Hess, Dean, senior Isabella Paez and Goldman teamed up to take the opening event of the meet, going 1:43.15 in the 200 medley relay. Hess went on to finish first in the 100 backstroke (55.58), as did Paez in the 200 butterfly (2:00.27).
“The women came in and did some great racing,” Colella said. “Coming off of two weeks of holiday training, we are really pleased with the way they competed. We had a number of season-best dual meet swims.”
The Blue Devil men received contributions from a variety of swimmers, beginning with senior Matt Johnson, who won the 1,000 freestyle in 9:27.82 to kick off the individual events. Sophomores Miles Williams and Sheldon Boboff went one-two in the 200 freestyle before junior Yusuke Legard was first to the wall in the 50 freestyle (20.48).
Duke’s swimmers and divers return to competition in two weeks when the program hosts North Carolina Saturday, Jan. 27 at 1 p.m. in Taishoff Aquatics Pavilion. The Blue Devils will honor the team’s senior class prior to the start of the dual meet.
