Through two days of competition at the ACC Championships in Greensboro, the NC State men’s swimming and diving team looks to be well on its way to a fifth straight conference title.
The Wolfpack sits atop the team leaderboard with 496.5 points, already 92.5 clear of the rest of the field. The Pack has five podium finishes through six swimming events, with two gold medals.
The Wolfpack started ACCs out on top of the podium, winning the 200-yard medley relay for the sixth straight season Wednesday. The Pack’s relay team of junior Coleman Stewart, senior Daniel Graber, freshman Nyls Korstanje and senior Justin Ress broke the ACC record en route to the gold medal, finishing in 1:22.37 to beat out Louisville.
The Pack also picked up a fourth-place mark in the 800-yard freestyle relay Wednesday, missing the podium by just 0.4 seconds.
On Thursday, sophomore Eric Knowles won the first individual gold at ACCs of his career, continuing the Pack’s dominance in the 500-yard freestyle. Knowles finished in first with a time of 4:12.13, winning by half a second. Graduated Wolfpack star Anton Ipsen won the 500 free each of the four years in his career, and Knowles made it five straight for NC State Thursday evening.
Knowles wasn’t alone in the main final of the 500 free, as junior John McIntyre and sophomore Gil Kieser also competed. McIntyre placed fifth, while Kieser touched the wall in seventh place.
In the 200-yard individual medley, Wolfpack senior Andreas Vazaios collected the seventh individual medal of his illustrious ACC career. Vazaios was out-touched at the wall by .02 seconds in the 200 IM Thursday, taking silver in the event he had won gold in each of the previous two seasons. Senior Jacob Molacek added some team points for the Pack in the 200 IM, placing second in the ‘B’ final.
Four members of the Wolfpack qualified for the main final in the 50-yard freestyle, with Ress finding the podium with a third-place finish. Korstanje finished behind Ress in fourth, while sophomore Giovanni Izzo and senior Cobe Garcia finished sixth and seventh, respectively.
The Pack had won the 50 free the previous four seasons, with Olympic gold medalist Ryan Held capturing the last three. Despite not finishing atop the podium, the Wolfpack picked up a total of 112.5 team points in one of its deepest events.
To wrap things up Thursday, the Wolfpack claimed silver in the 200-yard freestyle relay. Korstanje, Ress, Molacek and Stewart finished .19 seconds behind the team from Florida State, as a school other than NC State won the relay for the first time since 2013.
Competition will heat up as the ACC Championships move into the weekend, with a much busier Friday and Saturday coming for the Pack.
