The NC State men’s swim & dive team had itself a monster of a championship meet to close out the postseason. Despite finishing fifth — one place lower than last year — the Wolfpack tallied 373.5 points after putting up 291 points last year.
Highlighted by three individual national titles, NC State performed phenomenally to keep pace with swimming powerhouses like Arizona State, Texas and Cal. In the end, the Pack finished a mere 5.5 points behind No. 6 Indiana and less than 12 points behind No. 5 Texas.
One year after finishing third in the 200-yard medley relay, NC State smashed the NCAA, meet and U.S. Open records in the same event to open night one with a championship title. Senior Kacper Stokowski, graduate student Mason Hunter, senior Nyls Korstanje and sophomore David Curtiss combined to dip below 1:21 for the first time in history, upsetting No. 1 Arizona State by almost half a second.
On Thursday morning, senior Ross Dant kept the ball rolling with an eighth-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle prelims to make it back for a second swim. Sophomore Arsenio Bustos threw down a lifetime best in the 200-yard individual medley to take third overall heading into finals, and NC State put up three B-final-worthy swims in the 50-yard freestyle to cap off a solid morning.
While Arizona State’s Leon Marchand was undoubtedly the star of the show on Thursday evening — the 20-year-old shattered his own NCAA record in the 200-yard individual medley, finishing first by a mile — NC State gained some serious ground in the 50-yard freestyle finals. Korstanje, senior Noah Henderson and Curtiss finished in ninth, 10th and 14th, respectively, to put up a total of 18.5 points.
Dant placed seventh in the 500-yard freestyle finals — his highest finish in the event to date — and Bustos claimed sixth place in the 200-yard individual medley to combine for 25 points. All in all, the Wolfpack carried serious momentum going into the evening’s tightest race: the 200-yard freestyle relay.
NC State couldn’t quite replicate its success from the prior night’s session, but still finished in a very respectable third place behind Florida and Cal. The Wolfpack notched 85.5 points — 14 more points than expected — after Thursday evening’s races. Merely 2.5 points behind Arizona State, it seemed like anything was possible in the two days of competition to come.
No swimmers from NC State made it to finals in the 400-yard individual medley, 200-yard freestyle or 100-yard breaststroke, but the Wolfpack more than made up for it in the 100-yard butterfly and 100-yard backstroke. Six men made it back for a second swim on day three, led by Stokowski’s lifetime best in the 100-yard backstroke prelims for a shot at another national championship in the event.
Sophomore Aiden Hayes, Korstanje and Stokowski went 6-7-8 in the 100-yard butterfly finals to pick up 36 points for the Pack. Combined with the six from Bustos’ 11th-place finish, NC State picked up significantly more points than any other team in the event, a much-needed boost after failing to put up any in several events that evening.
Heading into NCAAs, NC State’s most likely national champion wasn’t Hayes or even Gallant — it was Stokowski, last year’s 100-yard backstroke champion. His main competition was Cal’s Destin Lasco and Florida’s Adam Chaney, both of whom posed a serious threat. In the end, however, it was Indiana’s Brendan Burns who took the top spot, finishing 0.25 seconds ahead of Stokowski.
The Poland native still managed to pick up some hardware despite the upset, hanging onto second and breaking the 44-second barrier for the first time to earn some more all-important points for the Pack. Later that night, Stokowski led Hunter, Hayes and junior Luke Miller to a fourth-place finish in the 400-yard medley relay.
All the magic happened on day four, even if it didn’t look like it at first. Stokowski, Bustos, Hayes, Bowers and Miller all made it back for a second swim after prelims, but nothing hinted at the evening’s potential until the early heats of the mile.
About a month after swimming poorly at ACCs due to illness, Dant came back in a big way on Saturday afternoon to drop 14 seconds from his season-best and win the earlier, slower heats of the mile. A few hours later, he watched his distance teammate Gallant swim against the likes of Kentucky’s Levi Sandidge, who held the top seed in the field by three seconds.
In the end, not only did Gallant swim a lifetime best — he touched the wall in 14:28.94, good enough to finish as the national champion in the mile. And Dant, who cheered on his teammate from the sidelines, ended up a national runner-up without swimming in the final heat. He finished in 14:30.82, over three seconds ahead of Georgia’s Jake Magahey.
Well after Gallant’s win in the mile, Hayes entered the A-final of the 200-yard butterfly after finishing fifth in prelims. The top five times were all within a second of each other, leaving the field ripe for an upset over Burns, who claimed the title last year in 1:38.71.
Hayes led early before handing the reins to Burns for nearly the remainder of the race, and by all accounts, fans were looking at a repeat championship from the Hoosier. That being said, Hayes came back in a big way on the final 50 to split 26.07 en route to passing Burns for the national title.
Although Indiana’s top divers sealed the deal for an edge over the Wolfpack in the final standings, NC State’s 400-yard freestyle relay just barely edged out Texas for fourth place in the last event of the season. And with that, it was over — three national titles and countless personal bests later, the Pack couldn’t have really asked for a better way to end the postseason.
