It was a split decision for the NC State swimming and diving team Friday afternoon in Charlottesville, Virginia, as the Wolfpack men came away with a dominant victory over Virginia, while the NC State women couldn’t top their ACC foes.
The No. 6 Pack men (5-0, 1-0 ACC) took care of business against the 23rd-ranked Cavaliers (5-3, 1-3 ACC), putting on a commanding display to win 193-100 while having the fastest time in all 14 swimming events and higher scores in both diving heats. For the No. 15 NC State women (3-4, 0-1 ACC), the eighth-ranked Cavaliers (8-0, 4-0 ACC) proved too much to handle, as Virginia took the dual 178-117.
The Wolfpack combined for 33 NCAA “B” cut times, with the men garnering 24 and the women nine. The NC State men had five different swimmers win two events, as senior Olympians Anton Ipsen and Ryan Held, juniors Justin Ress and Andreas Vazaios and sophomore Coleman Stewart all touched first on multiple occasions.
As always, the Pack was particularly strong at the long-distance freestyle events. On the men’s side, Ipsen won both the 1,000-yard freestyle and the 500-yard variant. Senior Hannah Moore did the same in the women’s competition, and both Ipsen and Moore collected “B” cut times in the 500 free.
Ress dominated the freestyle sprints, winning both the 50 and 100-yard free. Held, who is one of the strongest swimmers in the nation in those events, sat out the freestyle sprints, but captured first in both the 200-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly.
Stewart showed his dominance at backstroke, touching first in both backstroke events. Vazaios won the 200-yard butterfly as well as the 200-yard individual medley. The Pack men had two other individual winners on the day, sophomore Jacob Molacek and junior Daniel Graber. Molacek touched first in the 100-yard breaststroke, while Graber captured the top of the podium in the 200-yard distance.
For the Wolfpack women, freshman Julia Poole was victorious in the 100 breast, as well as finishing second in the 200 breast and third in the 200 IM. Senior Krista Duffield captured the Pack’s other individual win, in the 100 fly.
On the diving side of things, NC State took the top three spots in both men’s diving events, while sophomore Madeline Kline finished in third place in both the 3-meter and 1-meter for the Pack women.
Sophomore James Brady scored 328.80 points to win the men’s 3-meter, with junior Stewart Spanbauer and senior Harrison Mitchell finishing behind him. Spanbauer was victorious in the 1-meter, with Brady and freshman Holt Gray right behind.
The win over Virginia for the Pack men shows that they are, once again, the cream of the crop in the ACC and that it will take a major upset for anyone to dethrone NC State as ACC champs. For the women, while the result is disappointing, there were signs of good things especially in Moore’s and Poole’s performances.
The busy spring schedule for NC State will continue next weekend, as the Pack heads to Chapel Hill on Jan. 26 for a meeting with the Tar Heels.
