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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The Virginia swimming and diving teams will head to North Carolina this weekend for two meets. On Saturday, the team will face off against Duke and Gardner-Webb. That meet will begin at 1 p.m. in Durham, N.C. The Cavaliers will then face off against nationally-ranked North Carolina in Chapel Hill on Sunday afternoon. The men will begin competing at 1 p.m. while the women will start at 3 p.m. Live stats can be accessed on UNC’s official web site at http://tarheelblue.cstv.com/livestats/c-swim/
Virginia has been consistently ranked among the top 25 teams in the country. Currently, the men are ranked No. 14, just one spot above the 15th-ranked Tar Heel team. Meanwhile, the Virginia women are No. 15 and will look to top North Carolina’s No. 10 team.
The Cavaliers are coming off of a solid week of winter training in Costa Rica and have not competed since the Georgia Invitational, which was held Dec. 1-3.
“The training in Costa Rica was exceptional,” said head coach Mark Bernardino. “We feel as though we put the team through an incredible amount of work. Since Jan. 2, we have trained at a very high level in both the water and on dry land. We have reestablished a solid aerobics foundation and put ourselves in position to do some great things. We are tired but looking forward to starting competition again. The fruits of our training will best reveal themselves at the end of the season at the conference meet.”
Both Duke teams recently fell to South Carolina, but defeated Davidson in a meet that saw the Blue Devil women set two pool records. Danielle Spearman, Shannon Beall, Jessica Perry, and Katie Magee teamed up in the 400 medley relay to set a Cannon Pool record of 3:54.51. Ashley Twichell set the second pool record in the 1000 free, touching in 10:00.07. The Duke men were led by Andrew Clark, who won the 500 and 1000 free events.
The women’s team at Gardner-Webb looks to remain strong after falling to Georgia Southern but defeated Radford and FAMU two weeks ago. Rookie Elizabeth Ketterer has been a dominant force this season, winning the 1000 free at their last meet. As for the men, Abram Miller leads the team, recently setting the school record for the 1000 free with a time of 10:06.44. He also helped the Bulldogs to a first-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay. His second-place finishes set up Gardner-Webb’s defeat of Florida A&M.
Rookie Joe Kinderwater is North Carolina’s strongest competitor and the most recent National Collegiate Swimmer of the Week for his performance in the 1000 freestyle against Clemson. UNC’s Tyler Harris also looks to challenge the Cavaliers as he won the 200 fly, 200 breast and 200 individual medley last week. On the women’s side, Alison Clemens leads the Tar Heels in the 100- and 200-yard breaststrokes and the 200-yard individual medley. Both UNC teams are coming off a win over Clemson.
“We are excited to finally get a chance to compete again,” Bernardino said. “It has been six full weeks since our last race. We will compete against some good opponents and some quality teams this weekend.”