The N.C. State men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams fell to North Carolina Saturday on Senior Day, the last meet of the regular season, despite breaking multiple pool and school records and several top-10 marks in school history at the Willis R. Casey Natatorium.
The No. 22 men’s team fell to the 16th-ranked Tar Heels, 159.50-140.50, while the Wolfpack women lost to No. 14 UNC, 157-142.
Freshman Louis Wojciechowski completed the 200-meter freestyle in 1:36.74, N.C. State’s fastest time of the season and the third fastest time in school history. Wojciechowski finished a full second ahead of the next closest swimmer to win the event for the Wolfpack.
Another freshman stepped up for the Pack Saturday. Reed Wheeler completed the 100-meter backstroke in just 49.14, good enough for first place and the sixth fastest time in school history.
Continuing the trend, freshman Christian McCurdy won the 200-meter breakstroke by setting a new school record at 1:46.92 in the 200-meter butterfly.
Junior Jake Matysek grabbed the pool record and the fifth fastest time in school history in the 200-meter breaststroke, nearly breaking the two-minute mark and finishing ahead of the rest of the field at 2:00.08.
“It’s kind of bittersweet to do it and we still lost,” Matysek said. “It’d really be a lot more fun to do it and contribute to a win, but it’s still pretty cool to ball out and beat some UNC guys and get my name up on that board, hopefully for a while.”
Freshman Simonas Bilis, senior Joe Martin, junior Jonathan Boffa and sophomore David Williams won the 200-meter freestyle relay with a time of 1:19.89.
In the 400-meter medley relay sophomore Hannah Freyman, sophomore Lauren Poli, junior Zina Grogg and senior Marifrances Henley recorded the third fastest time in school history, completing the event with a time of 3:43.73, just beating out the Tar Heels by .08 for first place.
Freshman Payton Schrum set a pool record in the 100-yard breaststroke at 1:03.93, good for first place and fifth all time in school history.
“This is the first year that we’ve actually been competitive with [Carolina],” Schrum said. “Now they’re actually scared of us. They were scared coming here. They didn’t know what was going to happen.”
Although the team lost the meet, Henley was all smiles after her final competition at N.C. State.
“This is my fourth year with the team and this is the closest it’s ever been,” Henley said. “So the fact that my team is moving forward in a positive way is awesome.”
The Wolfpack dominated the Tar Heels in diving. State took the top two spots in women’s one-meter and three-meter springboard. In one-meter, sophomore Rachael Mumma took first with a score of 308.02 and senior Hannah Hopkins took second at 277.80. In three-meter, the two swimmers swapped spots as Hopkins scored a 318.52 and Mumma scored 307.50.
The men took first in one-meter and the first three spots in three-meter. Senior Hudson Rains took first in both events with a one-meter score of 366.75 and a three-meter score of 385.95.
“It’s been a wild roller coaster today, being a senior and having all this great support here,” Rains said. “It was really, really awesome to do what I did today and perform well in front of this big support.”
The Wolfpack will take a break from action for the next few weeks and prepare for the ACC championships. Head coach Braden Holloway is not happy about coming away with a loss but saw a lot of positives that the Pack can take away from the meet and build on for the ACCs.
“I think we can do better,” Holloway said. “We had a lot of people step up today. We had some freshmen coming out of the woodworks to show what the future can be like. We can bank this and bring it back out in a month. I was happy overall. We did pretty well today.”
