SwimSwam’s Max Mitchell was at the ACC Championships in Atlanta over the weekend and had the opportunity to catch up with the “fab five” from NC State. Simonas Bilis, Ryan Held, Andreas Schiellerup, and David Williams won the 200 freestyle relay with a nation leading 1:15.62. On the final day of the meet, Held, Bilis, Soeren Dahl, and Williams combined to post the fastest time in the nation in the 400 freestyle relay at 2:48.92.
From SwimSwam’s ACC Day 2 Finals Recap:
200 FREE RELAY
The best race of the night came to close out the meet, with NC State absolutely burning down the building in the 200 free relay.
The Wolfpack blasted a 1:15.62 to win the relay, moving to #1 nationally by over half a second. That’s not far off the time that won last year’s NCAA Championships. The relay they displaced for the top ranking was Alabama’s team that featured Kristian Gkolomeevleading off in 18.6.
The time stands up at the new ACC meet and conference record, and also broke the Georgia Tech pool record belonging to an Auburn team of Bryan Lundquist, George Bovell, Cesar Cielo and Matt Targett.
The splits were outstanding for NC State. They had their own 18-second leadoff man inSimonas Bilis, who outdid his individual 50 time and cracked 19 for the first time in his career with an 18.98 leadoff split. That moves Bilis to #3 nationally in the individual event, and means the team could realistically have 4 guys split 18 seconds at the NCAA Championships.
Freshman Ryan Held came off a disappointing individual 50 to blast an 18.96 split, andAndreas Schiellerup was 19.11 before anchor David Williams crushed an 18.57 on the anchor leg. We speculated last week about a potential NC State-Alabama battle for the NCAA title, and while Cal and Texas might be hard to overcome there, the Wolfpack and Crimson Tide do have as much firepower as anyone in the nation right now.
They blew out second-place UNC, which went 1:17.03 and got a 19.07 split from Nic Graesser swimming second. Louisville was third in 1:17.96, and they, too, had some quick splits, including a 19.25 from Trevor Carroll.
Georgia Tech was fourth, getting a 19.37 leadoff split from stud Andrew Kosic to go 1:18.38, just beating out Florida State’s 1:18.53. Virginia Tech was 6th overall in 1:18.57, losing a bit more ground to UNC and NC State. As of now, the H2Okies hold a 55-point lead over the Tar Heels and a 63-point lead over the Wolfpack.
From SwimSwam’s ACC Day 4 Finals Recap:
400 FREE RELAY
- 2014 ACC Champion — NC State — 2:50.06
- NCAA “A” Standard — 2:53.11
- ACC Record
– 2:49.50 — NC State, 2014
The Wolfpack absolutely dominated the final event of the meet, blowing past their own ACC and school records with a dirty 2:48.92 to get past the nation-leading team from Auburn (2:48.98). Here are the splits:
Held 20.39 42.79
Bilis 19.59 41.38
Dahl 19.91 42.69
Williams 19.81 42.06 – 2:48.92
This relay is made up of one swimmer from each class, with Held being the freshman, Dahl the sophomore, Bilis the junior, and Williams the senior. Bilis’ 41.38 is just off of his 41.30 split from the medley relay, but his ability to stay fresh despite it being the fourth day of prelims-finals competition is impressive.
2nd in that relay were the UNC Tar Heels, back at 2:52.32, their fastest split of 42.62 coming from anchor Ben Colley, who took third in the 200 fly earlier tonight. Colley just barely held off a roaring Andrew Kosic (GT), who split a 41.96 as their anchor to solidify third place in the event and post the 2nd fastest split of the night. GT’s time of 2:52.47, along with the Tar Heels’ relay, dipped under the NCAA ‘A’ cut.
The NC State Wolfpack are your 2015 ACC champions with 1331 points. This marks their first conference title in 23 years.
Nervous about this group after last year. Posted some very fast times at ACCs and then had a very hard time repeating, dropping only in their 400 Free Relay and actually disqualifying the 200 Free relay. Let’s hope the team did not sell out for conference and instead can swim when it matters.
“dropping only in their 400 Free Relay and actually disqualifying the 200 Free relay”
Those are the events that they need to drop times to win national titles anyway… So you’re saying they will likely to go faster in those events at NCAA and should have a shot at winning?
Has the center of ACC Men’s swimming shifted to NC State and from the state of Virginia? VT men’s swimming might have lost more than a coach to NC State. Hopefully all boats rise in the ACC with the NC State speed.