For the fifth straight year, the NC State men’s swimming and diving team is the ACC champion.
The Wolfpack wrapped up the ACC Championships in Greensboro Saturday night, finishing atop the leaderboard with 1,396.5 points, beating out second-place Louisville by 261 points. NC State finished the meet with five event titles, and a total of 16 podium finishes.
After collecting two gold medals and five podium finishes over the first two days of competition, NC State wrapped up the weekend in strong fashion, winning three gold medals over the final two days.
The Wolfpack added two gold medals to its trophy case on Friday, with junior Coleman Stewart taking the top spot in the 100-yard backstroke and the 400-yard medley relay team capturing the Pack’s second straight gold medal in the event.
Stewart touched in at 44.44 in the 100 back, .44 seconds better than the rest of the field but .08 seconds slower than his own ACC record. Senior Noah Hensley joined Stewart in the main final of the 100 back, finishing fifth. In the ‘B’ final, junior Mark McGlaughlin placed second for a 10th-place finish overall.
While the 400 medley relay has been NC State’s weakest relay over the past few years, the Pack took home its second straight ACC title in the event Friday night. The Wolfpack’s time of 3:03.26 beat out Louisville by about half a second, as the team of Stewart, senior Daniel Graber, freshman Nyls Korstanje and sophomore Giovanni Izzo won the Pack’s second relay title of the conference meet.
To go along with his 100 back and 400 medley relay titles Friday, Stewart found the podium with a second-place finish in the 100-yard butterfly. Hensley joined Stewart on the podium, finishing .24 seconds behind his teammate. Wolfpack senior James Bretscher also competed in the main final of the 100 fly, placing seventh.
The Pack got two other podium finishes Friday, as senior Andreas Vazaios finished third in the 200-yard freestyle and sophomore Eric Knowles finished second in the 400-yard individual medley. In Friday’s other event, Graber placed one spot off of the podium in the 100-yard breaststroke.
On Saturday, the Wolfpack had a podium finisher in five of six events, led by a gold medal from Stewart in the 200-yard backstroke.
Stewart made it a sweep of the backstroke events for the second year in a row, beating the rest of the field by over a full second with a time of 1:39.10. The 200 back was a strong event for the Pack, as Hensley finished sixth in the main final and sophomore Jacob Johnson finished first in the ‘B’ final.
Vazaios collected his third individual medal of the meet, taking silver in the 200-yard butterfly. He was one of three members of the Wolfpack to swim in the main final of the event, and with his silver he finishes his Wolfpack career with nine individual medals at ACCs. Bretscher finished seventh in the 200 fly, while freshman Zachary Brown placed eighth.
The Wolfpack also placed three swimmers in the ‘A’ final of the 1,650- and 100-yard freestyle events, with an NC State swimmer winning a bronze in each. In the 1,650 free, junior Jack McIntyre’s time of 14:41.73 was good for third place. Knowles and junior Danny Erlenmeyer also competed in the final, with Knowles touching in at fifth place and Erlenmeyer taking eighth.
In the 100 free, the Pack’s five-year reign came to an end. Senior Justin Ress finished in 42.41 to earn a bronze medal, finding the podium by just .14 seconds. Korstanje finished in seventh in the 100 free, with senior Jacob Molacek finishing one behind him in eighth.
In the 200-yard breaststroke, Graber was the Pack’s lone representative in the ‘A’ final. He finished eighth.
The Wolfpack wrapped up the ACC Championships with a bronze medal in the 400-yard freestyle relay, as the team of Stewart, Vazaios, McGlaughlin and Ress touched in at 2:48.71. It marked the first time since 2012 that the Pack hasn’t won the event at ACCs.
The Wolfpack women captured the ACC title last week, and with the men’s win Saturday the Pack has swept the conference crown in two of the last three seasons.
Next up for both the men’s and women’s teams will be the NCAA Championships, which will take place later in March.
