NC State Ends ACC’s with American Record in the 400 Free Relay, 2nd-Fastest Ever

2018 ACC MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIPS

• When: Wednesday, February 21st to Saturday, February 24th | Prelims 10:00am | Finals 6:00pm
• Where: Greensboro Aquatics Center, Greensboro, NC (Eastern Time Zone)
• Defending Champion: NC State Wolfpack (results) fix
• Psych Sheet: here
• Live Results: here
• Streaming: WatchESPN (subscription required)
• Championship Central: here

The Wolfpack may not be fully tapered, some of their stars may still have beards, and it may be the end of a long four days of competition, but that didn’t seem to matter much to the NC State quartet of Ryan Held, Justin Ress, Jacob Molacek, and Coleman Stewart, who wrapped up the competition by blasting a pool-shaking time of 2:45.69.

That time is also an American Record, knocking well over a second off of the previous mark of 2:47.02 that Texas set way back in 2009.  That appears to have been the sole SCY men’s American Record from the supersuit era.

Held led off with a 41.45, just a hair off of his time in the individual 100 free earlier tonight.  Ress blasted an incredibly rare sub-41 split (40.87).  Molacek turned in a “very solid” 41.71, while Stewart, primarily known for his backstroke prowess, kicked almost to the 15m mark on each turn to deliver a 41.66 anchor leg.

That’s now the 2nd-fastest time ever in the event, ranking only behind the 2:45.39 the Texas Longhorns recorded at last year’s NCAA championship meet.  That relay’s time doesn’t count as an American Record, because it included Joe Schooling, who represents Singapore internationally. NC State is also the 2nd team ever to break 2:46, as the longstanding record that went down last March was a 2:46.03 that Auburn swam in 2009.