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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The Virginia men’s swimming and diving team, coming off its fifth consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference title, heads to Federal Way, Wash., to compete this week in the 2012 NCAA Championships. The meet, which begins Thursday, is being held at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center. Live results for all six sessions will be linked on VirginiaSports.com and ESPN3.com will have a live webcast of finals on Friday and Saturday night.

Preliminaries are scheduled to being at 11 a.m. Pacific (2 p.m. Eastern) each day with finals slated for 7 p.m. Pacific (10 p.m. Eastern). Thursday’s finals will be broadcast live via NCAA.com and linked on VirginiaSports.com.

The Cavaliers will be represented by five swimmers and for the first time in 30 years, a diver, at the national meet. Senior Briggy Imbriglia won the platform title at the NCAA Zone Championships to qualify for the national meet and will be the first Virginia diver to participate in all three diving events at the national championships. He will be joined by seniors Peter Geissinger and David Karasek, juniors Tom Barrett and Brady Fox and sophomore Parker Camp. The Cavaliers will also compete in all five relays.

Both Barrett (Australia) and Karasek (Switzerland) are coming off performances at their country’s respective Olympic Trials and will join the team in Washington.

“We will have a smaller group than what we are used to but we certainly have quality athletes who can perform at high levels,” Virginia head coach Mark Bernardino said. “We have two swimmers coming from halfway around the world, so we are not sure of their fatigue level. We are definitely going to reduce the number of individual events to maximize our relay opportunities.”

Virginia posted its best finish a year ago when the Cavaliers placed eighth, highlighted by former swimmer Matt McLean’s national championship in the 500 freestyle. Geissinger, Karasek and Barrett were all members of All-America relay squads at the 2011 championships. Karasek also returns as an honorable mention All-American in the 200 freestyle.

Imbriglia, Camp and Fox are making their NCAA debuts this season.

“Peter, David and Tom have all achieved high marks at this meet,” Bernardino said. “For David, Peter and Briggy, it will be their last meet, so we hope they will be on their ‘A’ game and perform better than ever. We have rookies in Brady and Parker, but they have both competed at high levels at national events and have swam exceptionally well for us all year.”

Historically, the Cavaliers have scored points at 27 NCAA Championships since 1981, including 15 consecutive. Over those last 15 years, Virginia has finished in among the top-20 nationally each time.

2012 Men’s NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships
Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center | Federal Way, Wash.
Schedule of Events

Thursday, March 22
200 Freestyle Relay
500 Freestyle
200 Individual Medley
50 Freestyle
400 Medley Relay
One-meter Diving

Friday, March 23
200 Medley Relay
400 Individual Medley
100 Butterfly
200 Freestyle
100 Breaststroke
100 Backstroke
800 Freestyle Relay
Three-meter Diving

Saturday, March 24
1650 Freestyle
200 Backstroke
100 Freestyle
200 Breaststroke
200 Butterfly
Platform Diving
400 Freestyle Relay

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