Prelims: Day 4 at ACC Men's Swimming and Diving Championships
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ATLANTA – The 10th-ranked Virginia men’s swimming team continued competition Saturday at the 2011 Atlantic Coast Conference Championships at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center in Atlanta, Ga. The Cavaliers advanced 10 competitors into event finals Saturday night in addition to the five competitors in the 1650 free and the 400 freestyle relay. Virginia heads into the last night of finals leading the meet with 544 points. North Carolina is second at 405 and Florida State third at 338.5.
“All in all a very good morning,” said Virginia coach Mark Bernardino. “We have a lot of very good milers swimming tonight that didn’t race this morning. We would like to score as highly as we can in as many events as we can and find ways to get individual athletes to the NCAA meet in backstroke, butterfly, distance freestyle and the breaststroke tonight.”
Cavalier senior Scot Robison turned in the highlight performance of the morning, setting the ACC record in the 100 freestyle with a time of 42.32. He set the old mark of 42.42 at last year’s meet.
“I would like to say that surprised me, but he is such a warrior and hard worker,” Bernardino said. “Anything that he gets he earns. I’m real proud of him. He is a very special kid.”
Robison will be joined in the 100 free finals by teammates Peter Geissinger and Tom Barrett. Geissinger posted the third best prelim time at 43.50 and Barrett was fourth at 43.58.
Virginia opened the final prelim session by posting the top three times in the 200 backstroke. Brady Fox finished with the best swim at 1:44.06 while Matt Murphy and Parker Camp tied for second at 1:44.20.
“The backstrokers started us off wonderful,” Bernardino said. “Parker Camp, Matt Murray and Brady Fox and Jack Murfee too. Three in the finals and one in the consolation got us rolling. We carried it over into the freestyle and almost had a fourth up in the freestyle. We had a great swim in the 100 free by Tom Barrett and Peter Geissinger.”
Three Cavaliers also advanced in the 200 breaststroke. Taylor Grey recorded the third best time at 1:57.67. Tim Hayes was sixth at 2:00.01 and Tom Casey was eighth at 2:00.30.
Matt Houser posted the top prelim swim in the 200 butterfly with a time of 1:44.90.
“The breaststrokers did an exceptionally good job,” Bernardino said. “I was really happy with Taylor Grey, Timmy Hayes and Tom Casey. We just didn’t have the numbers in the butterfly and we knew that. We asked Brady to do a lot today, doing the second butterfly. It wasn’t really fair to him, but we were hoping he could maybe sneak in and get us some points. It was too soon after the 200 backstroke for him to have the energy and the time to recover.”
The Cavaliers will have five of the eight swimmers in the final heat of the 1650 Saturday night. Matt McLean, who won the race in 2009, will be joined by John Snawerdt, Taylor Smith, Bradley Phillips and Jon Daniec. UVa will look to win its fourth straight 400 freestyle relay in the evening’s final event.
2011 ACC Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships
Feb. 23-16 | Atlanta, Ga.
After 14 Events
1. VIRGINIA
544 2. North Carolina
405 3. Florida State
338.5 4. Virginia Tech
327.5 5. Duke
257 6. Clemson
242 7. Georgia Tech
181 8. NC State
140 9. Maryland
118 10. Boston College
56 11. Miami 13