Women’s 1650 Free Final
Virginia’s Kelly Offutt completed a distance double with a 16:08.65 to win the women’s mile. There weren’t a lot of big seed-times in this women’s mile coming into the meet, but almost everyone beat those seeds by double digits, including Offutt who saw a 13-second drop, and an 8-second improvement on her lifetime best.
Virginia’s distance group is strong, as they had 4 of the top 5 spots, including a 2nd from Rachel Naurath in 16:12.55, a 4th from Alison Haulsee in 16:15.43, and a 16:18.18 from freshman Hannah Borgersen for 5th. All five of those swimmers will return for the Cavaliers next season.
The lone swimmer to break up their dominance was North Carolina senior Jackie Rudolph, who took 3rd in 16:14.49.
Women’s 200 Backstroke Final
Virginia got a second-straight win on this final day of competition, one that sets up much better for them than Friday night did, thanks to Courtney Bartholomew swimming a 1:53.13. It’s hard to put any backstroke times in perspective this year, because of how meteorically they’ve risen, but Bartholomew is reported to be untapered for this meet so could get down into the 1:52’s or 1:51’s it will take for a top-8 finish.
Her teammate, sophomore Ellen Williamson, took 2nd in 1:54.08, followed by North Carolina freshman Annie Harrison in 1:54.79. North Carolina took the 3rd-6th spots in this race, with Carly Smith placing 4th in 1:54.91.
Florida State’s Ashley Hicks cut through the tension in this race to get 6th in 1:56.98. She was the only non-North Carolina or Virginia swimmer in this A-Final.
Women’s 100 Free Final
Virginia’s Lauren Perdue, all week long, has been much faster in finals than in prelims. Florida State’s Tiffany Oliver, though, has been lights out in both sessions, and she captured her second sprint freestyle title of the meet with a 48.19 win. Perdue took 2nd in 48.45.
Perdue had won this race her previous three seasons, including last year when she was battling a back injury, and was seeking to become the first ever four-peat champion in the event in the ACC. Instead, she will graduate as the second three-peater, following the great Kari Haag from UNC in the 90’s, where they absolutely dominated this event.
Florida State’s other top sprinter, Kaitlyn Dressel, was 3rd in 49.10, just beating out Katarina Filova fromVirginia Tech. Marifrances Henley just missed another school record for NC State with a 49.20 for 5th.
Women’s 200 Breast Final
Duke’s Christine Wixted avoided the trap of a big add from prelims-to-finals, like she had in the 100 on Friday; the trap she couldn’t avoid, though, was giving up of the big early lead. She turned half-a-second ahead of Virginia Tech’s Weronika Paluszek, but Paluszek had a monster of a third 50 to take the lead away. Wixted tried to fight back on the final 50, but came up about a stroke short. That gave Paluszek, just a freshman, the breaststroke sweep in 2:10.12; Wixted was 2nd in 2:10.19. That was the same finish order as we saw in the 100.
Kristin Polley from Florida State was 3rd in 2:13.32 and Miami’s Chris Anderson was 4th in 2:13.42.
Women’s 200 Fly Final
After Virginia started out the session hot, the North Carolina women got on a roll late in the session, beginning with this women’s 200 fly. There, Cari Blalock won in 1:54.67, coming in two seconds faster than she was in prelims and easily a lifetime best. That just missed the conference record by .08 seconds. Freshman Meredith Hoover had a good finals swim as well, dropping down to a 1:55.29 for 2nd.
Virginia Tech’s Heather Savage went out like a banshee, just as she did this morning, splitting a 54.1 on her first 100 yards. That pace proved to be unsustainable (though she held it pretty well for a third 50) and she fell back to 3rd place in 1:56.54.
North Carolina’s Emma Nunn was 4th in 1:56.85, giving them three out of the top four finishers.
Women’s 400 Free Relay Final
The Tar Heels ended the meet with a bang. In a record-setting swim that was 6 seconds better than they’d been this season, and really a big surprise, touching in 3:15.88 for the win. Their freshman middle got this record for them, with Lauren Earp marking a 48.5 on the 2nd leg and Hannah Lincoln splitting 48.3 on the 3rd leg. They were joined by Danielle Siverling, just a sophomore, and another freshman Ally Hardesty on the anchor.
Florida State, in less of a surprise, was 2nd in 3:16.54, including an awesome 47.2 anchor from Tiffany Oliver, and Virginia was 3rd in 3:16.94.
Final Team Standings
The Virginia women made it 6 in a row, but their counterparts from around the ACC are slowly catching up to them, at least in top end speed if not in actual wins. Virginia Tech was 2nd, followed by North Carolina. That relay DQ in the 800 on Wednesday ended up keeping the Tar Heels from a runner-up finish.
1. Virginia, University of 832
2. Virginia Tech 536
3. University of North Carolina 508
4. Florida State University 497
5. North Carolina State Universit 438
6. University of Miami (Fl) 389
7. Duke University 246
8. Georgia Institute of Technolog 158
9. Boston College 98
10. Clemson University Diving Team 12
