[UPDATE 3/1/2012: Word out of Cavalier camp is that the decision has gone from “she’s out” to “still up in the air”. The final choice is set to be made early next week. We will keep you updated when we here more]
Original story below:
Virginia junior Lauren Perdue has been ruled out for the NCAA Championships that will begin in just over two weeks in Auburn, Alabama.
Perdue, who is a two-time ACC Swimmer of the Year, was the Cavaliers’ biggest scoring threat this year, and her loss will be felt bigtime in the team standings.
Virginia coach Mark Bernadino alluded to an injury of some sort during ACC’s, but declined to elaborate on the nature. We now know that Perdue has suffered from a fractured back, and swam through the pain at ACC’s in order to have one last opportunity to swim with her sister, Virginia senior Meredith Perdue.
The younger Lauren finished 2nd at last year’s NCAA Championships in the 200 free, and would have been the fastest returning swimmer in the event this year. She also picked up 11th-place points in the 100 free and 8th place in the 50.
Despite the pain, Perdue pulled off a gutsy performance at ACC’s. She won the 100 free in a time of 48.27 and placed 2nd in the 50 in 22.17.
With the women’s NCAA Championship psych sheets expected to come out this week, we’ll see how this will affect the Cavalier relays, most of which qualified on the expectation of Perdue’s participation. In fact, she sat out her preferred 200 free in order to swim all 5 relays, which could leave the Virginia relays in a dangerous position.
how did she break her back!!?
I would have been great to see Purdue swim the 200, I hope she gets healthy soon. I wonder how she was cleared to swim with that kind of injury.
I am puzzled as to why she is even on the psych sheet if she is not planning to swim, Don’t the coaches have to submit their athletes events/
UVA was just hopefully that she could swim at the ACC’s. It has been a long year for her with this injury, it may come as a shock to many outside the program but I think anyone who has been following UVA could see something like this coming. Best of luck to her with her upcomming surgeries.
Wow. This completely changes the outlook for both Virginia and the rest of the teams for NCAA’s. Big loss. Hope she can get back to full health for next year’s NCAA’s