NC State swimming made the trip up to Charlottesville, Virginia last week to take on the hosting Cavaliers and UNC-Chapel Hill in a tri-meet on Friday, Jan. 19 and Saturday, Jan. 20.
The No. 4 Wolfpack men defeated both No. 18 Virginia and the unranked Tar Heels — each by more than a 135-point margin — while the No. 8 red-and-white women overpowered No. 20 North Carolina 196-157 but fell to No. 1 Virginia 265.5-87.5.
On the men’s side, the Pack established two new pool records at Virginia’s Aquatic and Fitness Center. In the 400-yard medley relay on day one, fifth-year senior Kacper Stokowski started the team off strong with a first-leg time of 45.92 seconds on backstroke, followed by junior Sam Hoover in 53.43 seconds on breaststroke, senior Luke Miller at 45.76 seconds on butterfly and finally redshirt freshman Quintin McCarty touched the wall in 42.78 seconds on freestyle to round out the pool-record time of 3 minutes, 7.89 seconds.
Red-and-white squads finished first and second in the 400-yard freestyle relay on day two, with the first place team consisting of Stokowski, McCarty, Miller and freshman Jerry Fox. The winning squad posted a pool-record time of 2:52.05 and every swimmer except Stokowski posted a sub-43 second split. Over the course of the weekend, NC State placed first in every relay it competed in.
Multiple red-and-white swimmers earned individual titles in the men’s competition. This included McCarty in the 50-yard freestyle, Stokowski in the 100-yard backstroke, Fox in the 200-yard freestyle, fifth-year senior Ross Dant in the 1000-yard freestyle, freshman Daniel Diehl in the 200-yard backstroke, senior James Plage in the 500-yard freestyle and graduate student Noah Bowers in the 200-yard butterfly.
Diehl made his collegiate debut in Charlottesville and proved himself to be a strong asset to an already talented NC State team. In addition to his individual title in the 200-yard backstroke, Diehl finished third in both the 200-yard freestyle and the 200-yard individual medley.
The Pack women faced a much greater challenge in the Cavaliers — the best team in the nation — and the Tar Heels. Virginia bested both opponents in all of the relay races, but NC State consistently came up as a close second.
Facing a Virginia team with lots of depth and loads of talent, the Wolfpack struggled to finish on the podium. However, senior Abby Arens and sophomore Kennedy Noble earned a second-place finish in the 200-yard breaststroke and the 200-yard backstroke, respectively.
Arens posted a time of 2:11.33 while Noble finished in 1:54.09. Both red-and-white swimmers came up just a fraction of a second behind the Virginia athletes that took first place in their respective events.
Next up, the Pack will travel back to Raleigh for what’s sure to be a highly competitive dual meet against the No. 2/8 Texas Longhorns. The meet is set to begin at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 26.
