2020 WOMEN’S ACCS: DAY 4 UPS/MIDS/DOWNS – UVA Clearly In Control On Final Day

2020 WOMEN’S ACC SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• When: Wednesday, February 19th to Saturday, February 22nd | Prelims 10:00 am | Finals 6:00 pm (1650 prelims Saturday at 4:00 pm)
• Where: Greensboro Aquatic Center, Greensboro, North Carolina (Eastern Time Zone)
• Defending Champion: North Carolina State University (NC State) (1x) (results)
• Streaming: ACC Network
  • Day 2 Finals
  • Day 3 Finals
  • Day 4 Finals
• Championship Central: Here
• Detailed Timeline: Here
• Psych Sheets: Here
• Live Results

For those unfamiliar with swimming terminology, the concept of “Ups” and “Downs” is a good way to track which teams performed best at prelims. In prelims, swimmers qualify for one of three finals heats: the top 8 finishers make the A final, places 9 through 16 the B final and places 17 through 24 the C final. In finals, swimmers are locked into their respective final, meaning a swimmer in the B heat (spots 9-16) can only place as high as 9th or as low as 16th, even if they put up the fastest or slowest time of any heat in the final.

With that in mind, we’ll be tracking “Ups,” “Mids” and “Downs” after each prelims session. “Up” refers to swimmers in the A final, “Mid” to swimmers in the B final and “Down” to swimmers in the C final.

With 11 A-finalists and a total of 16 swimmers, UVA is in control as we head into the final session of the 2020 ACC Championships. Those numbers are only from the four swimming events that were contested this morning, and yet don’t include results from platform diving prelims, timed finals of the 1650, or tonight’s 4×100 free relay timed final. Still, UVA stacks up favorably enough in all of those events that NC State doesn’t seem to have a chance to make up the 113.5 points they were down coming into today.

The Wolfpack still had a strong morning, though, ranking only behind UVA in terms of A-finalists (8). Louisville spread out their finalists a little more evenly, going 6/4/5, and sits only behind Virginia in terms of the total number of swimmers tonight.

At this point, each of the top three teams seems to be locked into its respective spot, but we should see a fun race for 4th tonight. UNC started the day with a 36 point lead over Notre Dame. The schools performed roughly evenly this morning, but the Fighting Irish have three women seeded in the top 16 in the mile, so that event and platform diving could prove decisive.