The NC State men successfully reclaimed their team title at the 2022 swimming and diving ACC Championships at the McCauley Aquatic Center in Atlanta on Saturday night, cementing their status as a top-three program going into NCAAs next month. Although the women were unable to come out on top against No. 1 Virginia, it was a tight battle right up to the very last relay.
Perhaps due to the sting of losing to Louisville by a mere two points in 2021, the Wolfpack men were back with a vengeance in Atlanta. With a final score of 1501.5 points, NC State blew Louisville out of the water by a margin of over 300 points. The meet was much closer on the women’s side — the score differential between NC State and Virginia was oftentimes less than 100 points throughout the meet, and it was mostly due to the Cavaliers’ dominating relay performances that cemented their third ACC title in a row.
In true Wolfpack fashion, the men started the meet with a bang. With a time of 6:08.35, freshman Sam Hoover, sophomore Lukas Miller, graduate student Eric Knowles and junior Hunter Tapp set the meet record in the 800-yard freestyle relay, blowing away NC State’s previous meet record set in 2017. On the women’s side, NC State placed second to Virginia and raked in 56 more points for the Wolfpack on the first day of competition.
Possibly one of the most exciting and dominant races of the meet was the men’s 500-yard freestyle A final. Junior Ross Dant, sophomores James Plage and Will Gallant and Knowles completed the 1-2-3-4 sweep to rake in an incredible 113 points for the Wolfpack. Just off the meet record of 4:10.00, Dant absolutely dominated the race from start to finish, touching the wall over two seconds ahead of teammate Plage.
Sophomore Abby Arens had an extremely impressive performance of her own shortly after Dant’s conference title. Although seeded 11th originally, Arens dropped a little under two seconds in the 200-yard individual medley prelims to rise to fifth overall heading into finals. From there, she nabbed the women’s first individual medal of the meet with a third-place finish, barely out touching Louisville’s Abigail Hay by less than a tenth of a second. This was just the beginning of an incredible meet for Arens, who just missed out on medaling at last year’s ACC championships.
Picking up NC State’s first individual gold of the meet, freshman David Curtiss shaved off a couple hundreths of a second from his prelims time to win the 50-yard freestyle by 0.09. Curtiss, now the fourth-fastest NCAA freshman in history in the event, will be a strong contender for gold heading into next month’s national championships. NC State, who hasn’t seen such a dominant sprinter since Ryan Held’s sub-18.6 performance at NCAAs in 2017, may be racking up some major points in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events next month thanks to the likes of Curtiss and juniors Nyls Korstanje and Noah Henderson.
Despite an unfortunate disqualification early on in the men’s 200-yard medley relay on Thursday night, the second full day of competition saw even more incredible swims. Freshman Grace Sheble dropped three seconds in the 400-yard individual medley to pick up bronze, finishing right ahead of teammate graduate student Kate Moore. Moore’s little brother, sophomore Mikey Moore followed suit in the men’s 400-yard individual medley, despite tacking on a little under a second from his prelims time.
Senior Kylee Alons may have missed out on defending her conference title in the 50-yard freestyle the night before, but she was able to nearly make up for it in the 100-yard butterfly. Alons broke the 51-second barrier for the first time to take silver in the event, less than a second behind first-place finisher and Tokyo Olympian Kate Douglass. In the 200-yard freestyle, Miller and Tapp finished one-two to rake in 60 more points for the Wolfpack, putting the men’s team well ahead of Louisville by the end of day 3.
Arens, truly a force to be reckoned with, garnered her first individual ACC title thanks to an explosive performance in the 200-yard butterfly on Friday night. Seeded seventh going into the meet, Arens fought off competition from star butterflyers to touch the wall in 1:54.11 in finals, just above the NCAA “A” cut but good enough for gold for the sophomore. Freshman Aiden Hayes also brought home some hardware in the same event, dropping over two second between prelims and finals — setting the 17-18 national age group record in the process — to finish third overall.
Friday night also saw two returning champions on the women’s side. Junior Katharine Berkoff not only continued her streak as the 100-yard backstroke conference champion, but also set the meet, ACC and pool records to boot. Furthermore, for the fourth year in a row, senior Sophie Hansson won the 100-yard breaststroke, something only a handful of swimmers have accomplished. Senior Andrea Podmanikova also had a fantastic race, touching the wall a mere 0.18 after Hansson to take bronze.
Heading into Saturday night, the women were trailing Virginia by less than 45 points. The stakes were high, but NC State pulled off a number of impressive swims to end the meet strongly ahead of NCAAs. Senior Emma Muzzy, Berkoff and Hansson all took home hardware in the 200-yard backstroke, 100-yard freestyle and 200-yard breaststroke, respectively. Berkoff in particular had an impressive swim, shaving over a second off of her personal best to capture third place for the Wolfpack.
Ending things on a sweet note, NC State’s killer distance duo — Gallant and Dant — finished one-two in the men’s 1650-yard freestyle. Both dropped substantial chunks of time off their personal bests, and Knowles and Plage also racked up points for the Wolfpack by finishing in the top 8.
In the end, the women’s team couldn’t quite come out on top of Virginia. With a final score of 1347 points, NC State finished less than 75 points behind the Cavaliers, a much closer margin than last year’s ACCs. On the other side of the pool, the men reclaimed their ACC title, blowing away Louisville by 309 points, taking back the title that has now been theirs in seven of the last eight years.
NC State will return to Atlanta in March for the NCAA swimming and diving championships. The women’s meet kicks off on March 16, and the men’s meet begins March 23.
