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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. The Virginia men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams welcome Yale and West Chester (Pa.) to the Aquatic and Fitness Center for a three-day NCAA Championship formatted meet set to run Thursday through Saturday.
Prelims will begin at 11 a.m. on both Thursday and Friday with the finals set for 6 p.m. On Saturday, competition will be moved ahead an hour, to 10 a.m. for prelims and 5 p.m. for finals. Admission to Virginia swimming and diving events are free of charge. Live results will also be available on VirginiaSports.com.
On Thursday, day one of competition, events will include the 200 free relay, 500 free, 200 IM, 50 free and the 400 medley relay. Diving events are likely to be held Thursday with a time TBA. The schedule for Friday includes the 200 medley relay, 400 IM, 100 fly, 200 free, 100 breast, 100 back and 800 free relay. The meet concludes Saturday with the 1650 free, 200 back, 100 free, 200 breast, 200 fly and 400 free relay.
“Our hope is that each athlete will have the opportunity at some point during the course of the three days to swim his or her fastest team in at least one event,” Virginia head coach Mark Bernardino said. “We just want to see that were going in a positive direction.
“We did a little bit more speed work Thanksgiving week and we will do more speed work in the first three days of this week,” he continued. “We do not expect earth-shattering results but we really hope to see continued steady improvement and we would love to see every athlete achieve at least one semester best time.”
The Virginia men and women, both ranked No. 13 in the latest poll, are coming off a double-dual meet with wins over Florida State and Penn State three weeks ago. Third-year Mei Christensen (Reston, Va.) and second-year Scot Robison (Charlotte, N.C.) were tabbed the ACC performers of the week following their performances, with Christensen additionally named the national swimmer of the week by CollegeSwimming.com.
Against the Seminoles and Nittany Lions, Christensen won the 100 back in 54.59 and took first place in the 200 back in an NCAA “B” cut time of 1:56.42. She also swam the backstroke leg of the winning 200 medley relay (1:32.74) and 400 medley relay (3:40.89). Her time in the 200 back also broke Virginia’s Aquatic and Fitness Center pool record which was previously held by two-time ACC Swimmer of the Year Brielle White. Robison, meanwhile, had three individual wins and a pair of relay victories. He took first place in the 50 free (20.55), 100 free (44.26) and the 100 fly (48.76) en route to Virginia’s wins over Florida State and Penn State. He also swam in the winning 200 free relay (1:22.17) and 400 medley relay (3:17.79) for the Cavaliers.
The Yale men earned a 181-112 win over Division II Southern Connecticut State at home last Monday. The Bulldogs won 11 of the 16 events, including a sweep of the top three places in both diving events. The Bulldogs also captured the top two spots in the 200 medley relay, the 100 back and the 500 free.
The Yale women, meanwhile, emerged with a 178-117 win over Southern Connecticut State last weekend and claimed first-place honors in 10 of the 16 events. The diving team started things off for the Bulldogs, with a pair of wins in the three-meter and one-meter diving events. Nine different athletes won events in the meet.
West Chester, a Division II school, saw both its men’s and women’s squads defeat Division I Lehigh two weeks ago in its last meet. The men earned a 149-145 come-from-behind win after finishing first and third in the final event of the meet, the 400 medley relay. The women defeated Lehigh 161-124.
“It is great for the first-years to see what a championship format will be like,” Bernardino said. “It will be run exactly as the ACC meet is run and exactly as the NCAA meet is run. They will have the opportunity to experience what the normal rest breaks are between their races, they will learn how to compose themselves between the preliminaries and finals, how to mentally prepare, and how to make the appropriate adjustments to race strategy between the preliminaries and finals. There are a lot of positives that can be gained from a meet like this.”