2016 ACC Championships: Day 2 Finals Live Recap

2016 ACC MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIPS

• When: Wednesday, Feb. 24 – Saturday, Feb. 27; Prelims 10AM/Finals 6PM (Eastern Time)
• Where: Greensboro Aquatic Center, Greensboro, NC
• Defending Champion: NC State (results)
• Streaming: watchESPN
• Championship Central
• Live Results
• Fan Guide

NC State and Louisville look to rise to the top after leading the first prelims session of the 2016 ACC Championships.

NC State, defending its first ACC title since 1992, put an astounding 9 swimmers into A finals tonight, including 4 of the top 5 seeds in the 50 free. Simonas Bilis (50 free) and Anton Ipsen (500 free) lead their respective events.

Louisville will challenge with 10 total scoring swims lined up, plus the 200 free relay. Trevor Carroll is the top-seeded Cardinal, sitting third in the 500 free.

Virginia Tech’s Brandon Fiala is the other top seed, looking to defend his 200 IM title for the H2Okies.

• Prelims recap
• Day 2 Ups/Mids/Downs

Keep refreshing this page for live event-by-event updates from Greensboro as they happen.

Note: The ACC men’s diving events happened last week. Those scores will be added into the live results tallies as each diving event is reached in the traditional meet order. But in order to give readers more up-to-date scores, we’ll be tracking the team scores with all three diving events already included in the totals.

500 Free – Finals

1. Anton Ipsen, NCSU – 4:14.53
2. Trevor Carroll, LOU – 4:15.77
3. Henry Campbell, UNC – 4:17.72

The gold, silver and bronze finishing spots were an exact replica of last year’s results in the 500 free, with NC State sophomore Anton Ipsen winning his second-straight ACC title.

Ipsen went 4:14.53, which is actually a little more than half a second off his time from a year ago. It should be plenty enough to get him into NCAAs, though, and ranks him 6th in the NCAA, pending results from the other conference meets this week.

Louisville’s Trevor Carroll reprised his role as the runner-up, going 4:15.77 and bettering his time from last year. UNC’s Henry Campbell was third once again, going 4:17.72.

NC State’s Adam Linker followed up a big prelims drop by taking another half-second or so off to go 4:18.20 – that pushed last year’s 4th-place finisher, Michal Szuba of Virginia Tech, back to 5th in 4:20.11.

200 IM – Finals

1. Brandon Fiala, VT – 1:42.26
2. Soeren Dahl, NCSU – 1:42.50
3. Nolan Tesone, LOU – 1:43.43

Virginia Tech’s Brandon Fiala held off a late NC State charge to successfully defend his 2015 ACC title in the 200 IM. Fiala, a junior, crushed his 2015 winning time by 1.7 seconds, dropping a huge 1:42.26 to earn an automatic NCAA invite.

Fiala was fast from the get-go, putting up the field’s best butterfly split at 22.13.

NC State junior Soeren Dahl made a late surge, coming up with the field’s best freestyle split at 24.28. He almost caught Fiala, but ran out of pool at the end, finishing in 1:42.50 for second an an automatic NCAA bid of his own.

Louisville’s Nolan Tesone used a big backstroke split to briefly take the lead, but Fiala surged back out front on breaststroke. Tesone would finish in 1:43.43. Behind him were UNC senior Ben Colley (1:44.44) and NC State freshman Justin Ress (1:44.52), both under the last time invited to NCAAs last year.

50 Free – Finals

1. Ryan Held, NCSU – 18.92
2. Simonas Bilis, NCSU – 18.94
3. Sam Lewis, UNC – 19.49

It was Simonas Bilis who was the defending champ, but his sophomore teammate Ryan Held ended the streak of repeat winners, going 18.92 for the first new ACC champ of the 2016 meet.

Held just touched out Bilis, who was 18.94 – that gives the Wolfpack a pair of sub-19 sprinters that should mean their 200 free relay won’t have to deal with the traditional question of whether to lead off with your top sprinter or use him as your anchor. NC State has the firepower to do both.

UNC senior Sam Lewis snuck in for third at 19.49, taking a little more than a tenth off his prelims time and touching out Andreas Schiellerup (19.52) to break up the Wolfpack sweep.

Duke’s James Peek was just behind in 19.54, with the final NC State championship finalist, Joe Bonk taking sixth in 19.57.

Factoring in the scores from all three diving events, NC State is on the cusp of offically taking the points lead away from Virginia Tech. VT held a 247-point lead over NC State after diving, where the Wolfpack entered no athletes. By our calculations, Virginia Tech currently has 441 points to NC State’s 427 with all three diving events included.

Louisville is third with 329 points, ahead of a Georgia Tech-UNC tie at 317.

*Note: The scores listed on live results now include the 1-meter diving event, which got added in yesterday, when it would traditionally have been contested. They do not include the 3-meter or platform events; those are the numbers we’ve added in.

200 Free Relay – Timed Finals

1. NC State – 1:15.65
2. UNC – 1:18.02
3. Louisville – 1:18.15

To little surprise, NC State won the 200 free relay with flying colors after obliterating competition in the 50 free. The Wolfpack went 1:15.65, just missing their own meet and conference record from last year by .03 seconds.

Though Ryan Held won the 50 earlier in the night, it was runner-up Simonas Bilis who provided the key split on the relay, going 18.24 on the second leg. Held led off in 19.31. Anchor Andreas Schiellerup also dipped under 19 with an 18.97, and Joe Bonk was 19.13. That was the same relay lineup as last year save for the graduated David Williams; his spot was taken by Bonk, who transferred in from Virginia Tech this season.

That time is easily #1 in the NCAA for the season, and is faster than Texas went in winning the NCAA title last year. NC State, of course, would have won the national title in the relay in 2015 were it not for a false start disqualification for the second year in a row. Now leading former NCAA leaders Florida by almost a second, NC State should again be title favorites if they can keep their starts legal.

The other team from North Carolina, the UNC Tar Heels, took second in 1:18.02, getting twin 19.3s from Logan Heck and Nicolas Graesser and a leadoff 19.65 from Sam Lewis. They held off Louisville, as the Cards were charging home to a 1:18.15 finish. Grigory Tarasevich led the way there with a 19.06 split.

NC State’s relay win propelled the Wolfpack to its first team points lead of the meet, meaning it took only one full day and 6 events to erase the 247-point lead Virginia Tech was sitting on after diving.

Team Scores

With diving points added in, here are the team points through two days of competition: