Two of the best teams in the ACC went head to head to wrap up the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) dual meet season. The Wolfpack teams came out with two big victories in their last home meet over rival, Virginia Cavaliers — 185-100 for the men and 167-127 for the women.
Both Wolfpack teams started off strong, winning the first events of the meet and the momentum continued until the very end. Within these races were some standout swims that resulted in several pool and team records being broken. Freshmen Emma Muzzy, Sophie Hansson and Kylee Alons all took down a record each in the 200 backstroke (1:54.38), 100 breaststroke (59.77), and 200 butterfly (1:57.03) respectively. Junior Ky-lee Perry took both the 50 (22.10) and 100 freestyle (48.34), along with senior Elise Hann taking the 100 backstroke (52.86). Other pool records came from three Wolfpack relays. For the women, Elise Haan, Sophie Hansson, Sirena Rowe and Ky-lee Perry won the 200 medley relay (1:36.83). Directly following, Coleman Stewart, Daniel Graber, Nyls Korstanje and Justin Ress took the victory in 1:25.66. The men closed the meet with another pool record in the 400 freestyle relay (Coleman Stewart, Nyls Korstanje, Giovanni Izzo, Justin Ress).
The NC State teams demonstrated a lot of their depth during this meet while taking several podium sweeps. Andreas Vazaios, Jacob Molacek, and Eric Knowles led the way taking victories in both of their events. On the diving side, James Brady, Holt Gray, and Stewart Spanbauer swept both the 1 meter and 3 meter events.
Head Coach Braden Holloway’s thoughts on the meet: “It was overall a great team performance from the seniors down to our freshmen. A bunch of new names stepped up in a very emotional meet for our seniors, and a very emotional meet against UVA with that great rivalry. I think some of the big highlights of the day came from multiple new names stepping up and taking some leadership role. There is still some fine tuning that we have to do, but this is all part of the process. Back to back competition is what we are looking for, and we got another one coming up, but it is something that we planned for, to get us use to multiple racing over and over.”
The next appearance for the Virginia Cavaliers will be at the ACC championship meet in February where their women’s team will try to defend their title. For the Wolfpack, they will travel to Austin, Texas next week to compete against the Texas Longhorns and the Wildcats of Arizona.