Prelims: Day 3 at ACC Men's Swimming and Diving Championships
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ATLANTA – The 10th-ranked Virginia men’s swimming team continued competition Friday at the 2011 Atlantic Coast Conference Championships at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center in Atlanta, Ga. The Cavaliers placed 13 competitors into event finals Friday night in addition to the 400 medley relay. Virginia heads into the third day of competition leading the meet with 280 points followed by Florida State (199.5).
Virginia will have four swimmers in the finals of both the 400 yard intermediate and the 200 yard freestyle. UVa placed two competitors in the 100 fly and 100 backstroke and one swimmer advanced in the 100 breaststroke. Matt Houser, Scot Robison and Peter Geissinger each posted top times in their respective prelims.
“We were hoping to place somewhere around 11 or 12 and I think 13 is awesome,” said Virginia coach Mark Bernardino. “We stayed very competitive and put people in a position where they are chasing us instead of us chasing them. That’s a good place to be.”
Houser tied North Carolina’s Tyler Harris for the fastest time in the 400 IM at 3:49.22. He will be joined in the finals by Tim Hayes (3:52.31), Bradley Phillips (3:52.80) and Jon Daniec (3:54.12).
“We had some young freshmen, Phillips and Daniec, while they were not superb in the 400 IM, they found a way to get into the top eight,” Bernardino said. “It was nice to see Tim Hayes also get into the final of that 400 IM.”
UVa posted the four best times in the 200 free topped by Robison’s 1:33.60. Matt McLean (1:35.74) was second followed by David Karasek (1:36.21) and Taylor Smith (1:36.86).
Geissinger turned in the morning’s best performance in the 100 fly with a time of 46.65. He is joined in the finals by teammate Matt Murray who was eighth at 47.66. Murray also made it into the finals of the 100 backstroke by finishing second in the prelims with a time of 47.62, a personal best. Jack Murfee (48.02) joins him in the finals of that event.
“Matt Murray was outstanding,” Bernardino said. “He had a very difficult double. He swam the 100 butterfly and came right back 31 minutes later and swam the 100 backstroke and went into the finals of both of those races. I thought he had a superb morning. I also thought Scot Robison was excellent in his 200 freestyle.”
Taylor Grey placed seventh in the 100 breaststroke to advance to the evening finals with a swim of 54.85.
“We did a good job of getting our people where we needed to get them and we got some help from some other teams along the way,” Bernardino said. “Now we just have to take care of business tonight. To me the key race is that 400 IM. I would really like to see us put our best foot forward, kind of like we did in the 800 freestyle relay.”
Finals begin tonight at 7 p.m. and will be webcast on ACC Select.
2011 ACC Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships
Feb. 23-16 | Atlanta, Ga.
After 12 Events
1. VIRGINIA
280 2. Florida State
199.5 3. North Carolina
196 4. Clemson 154 5. Virginia Tech
148.5 6. Duke
142 7. Georgia Tech
113 8. Maryland
80 9. NC State
69 10. Boston College
42