With the team battle all-wrapped-up for Virginia into the final night of competition, the focus turned back to the individual race battles, though the Cavaliers certainly had a lot to say about those as well. They finished the meet in style with two individual victories, though Florida State made a big statement with of their own as well with two wins at the end of the meet.
The men match their women’s team from last week with a sixth-straight ACC title. Among other records and honors, Virginia head coach Mark Bernadino won his 16th ACC men’s title and 27th overall ACC title. The former of those numbers breaks a tie with former NC State coach Don Easterling, and the latter breaks a tie with former North Carolina coach Frank Comfort.
Men’s 1650 Free Final
Virginia Tech freshman Michael Szuba has had an impressive inaugural meet this weekend. He took the men’s 1650 out well, leading after 500 yards in 4:29, but Virginia veteran Jon Daniec was just behind him. By the time they hit the 1000 mark, Daniec had put about 3 seconds between himself and the young swimmer.
Daniec ended up touching in 14:53.48 to improve upon his fourth-place finish from last year’s meet. Florida State’s John Jessell would end up catchin Szuba as well in the last 200 yards, taking 2nd in 14:58.89. That’s 14 seconds better than he’d been in his career coming into this meet.
Brad Phillips, the highest returning swimmer from last year’s meet, was 4th in 15:04.82.
Men’s 200 Back Final
Florida State will get at least one more meet this season and at least one more year out of mid-season addition Pavel Sankovich. When we spoke to Neil Harper after Sankovich’s first meet in January, he was clearly excited, but he was tempering his expectations with such a short turnaround before this meet.
Sankovich, though, has blown those expectations out of the water. He added his third individual ACC title of the meet with a 1:41.83, just beating out Virginia freshman Luke Papendick in 1:41.90.
Not surprisingly, Sankovich the sprinter got out to a big lead in this race. Then Papendick, and a few others like Virginia Tech’s Zach McGinnis (3rd – 1:42.32) and Virginia’s Matthew Murray (4th – 1:42.93) made up most of that ground.
Sankovich hadn’t exhausted all of his energy yet, though; he had the fastest closing 50 of the entire field and it was just enough to clip Papendick at the touch.
Men’s 100 Free Final
We saw a lot of great relay splits in 100 freestyles at this meet; it would seem, unfortunately, that these individual swims weren’t quite as good as those relay swims, but the lone swimmer under 43 seconds gave Florida State a second-straight event win.
Junior Paul Murray led the way in 42.94, with his senior teammate Mark Weber winning the B-Final in 43.52.
In 2nd was North Carolina State’s Jonathan Boffa andVirginia’s Tom Barrett in a tie at 43.04. There were three freshmen in this A-Final as well: Simonas Bilis from NC State in 4th (43.11), Logan Heck in 5th (43,24), and Virginia Tech’s Joe Bonk in 7th (43.93). Barrett, in fact, was the only senior among the top 8, which will set this up to be an even better race than the bang-bang finish we saw this season.
Men’s 200 Breast Final
Virginia got their 2nd win of the night with a dominant performance from junior Taylor Grey, touching 1st in 1:55.68, cutting almost a full second off of his previous best time (a best time that was done in 2011 when he was just a freshman).
Duke’s Hunter Knight was 2nd in 1:56.78; a drop in finals for him coincided with an add for UVA freshman Yannick Kaeser, which left the latter in 3rd place in 1:47.32. He took top-freshman honors over UNC’s Kurt Wohlrab, who was 4th in 1:57.90.
Also of note, North Carolina sophomore David Speese was 7th in 1:58.26. He’s a transfer from the now-defunct Maryland program.
Men’s 200 Fly Final
North Carolina’s Tom Luchsinger won his second individual event in as many days when he took the 200 fly in 1:43.17. Just like he did in the 400 IM, he pushed the pace early in this swim, opening in a 49.1. From there, it was just a matter of getting to the finish.
Virginia Tech sophomore Morgan Latimer did make up a little ground on Luchsinger on the last 50, but there wasn’t enough room for him to get any closer than 1:43.85. North Carolina State freshman Chris McCurdy was 3rd in 1:44.56.
Men’s 400 Free Relay Final
One more relay, and some redemption for the North Carolina State Wolfpack. After DQ’ing their first relay win of the meet, NC State went out on a high note with a 2:51.29 victory. That was just .03 seconds away from the Ivy League Record, and similarly just .04 behind what Michigan’s dynamite relay went on the same night in Bloomington.
The quartet of Simonas Bilis, David Williams, Matthew Thomas, and Jonathan Boffa included a 42.5 from Williams and a 42.0 from Boffa.
Florida State took 2nd in 2:52.74 with a 42.4 from their senior Mark Weber. That’s a relay that can probably be faster at NCAA’s. North Carolina took 3rd in 2:54.88.
Live meet results available here.
Team Standings Available Here.
1. Virginia, University of 759.5
2. Virginia Tech 597
3. University of North Carolina 549
4. Florida State University 534
5. North Carolina State Universit 481
6. Georgia Institute of Technolog 269.5
7. Duke University 268
8. Boston College 120
9. University of Miami (Fl) 13