The No. 9 University of Louisville men’s and women’s swimming and diving team split its inaugural ACC meet with the North Carolina Tarheels as the teams wrapped up a two-day meet on Saturday morning. The Louisville men won 220-133, while the women fell 159-194.
“I give credit to our men who really had an outstanding weekend,” head coach Arthur Albiero said. “We did a great job coming back from a good day yesterday and backed that up today with some great effort. We take great pride in beating a team like UNC. It’s our first ACC contest, so it’s a good start for us for the future.”
“On the women’s side, it’s a work in progress,” he said. “We’ve made good progress and a lot of people stepped up, we just need more. I give credit to UNC. On paper they were a better team and we needed to swim out of our minds to have a shot. We did that, and we closed the gap.”
While the women’s squad won 11 of the 19 events, including first place finishes in three of the four relay races, the men dominated, winning 15 of the 19 events and sweeping all four relay events.
The Cardinals not only put forth an impressive team effort, but they also dominated individually. Five Tarheels posted NCAA B-cut times, however 10 Louisville swimmers surpassed their respective B-cut standards. Tanja Kylliainen finished the meet with B-cut times in four different races, while Kelsi Worrell followed with three. On the men’s side, Caryle Blondell, Grigory Tarasevich, and Nolan Tesone all finished with two B-cut times.
In the first event of day two, the women’s 200-medly relay team of Tanja Kylliainen (25.71), Andee Cottrell (28.19), Kelsi Worrell (23.40) and Maggie Patterson (22.83) took first with a combined time of 1:40.13 to edge their Tarheel counterparts by 0.84 seconds. In the men’s 200-medly relay, the team of Grigory Tarasevich (22.57), Thomas Dahlia (24.26), David Boland (21.20) and Caryle Blondell (19.49) finished first with a combined time of 1:27.52. They touched 1.02 seconds before the second-place UNC team.
Marah Pugh finished second in the women’s 1000-free with a time of 10:01.71, trailing only UNC’s Emma Nunn who finished in 9:53.15. On the men’s side, Bryan Draganosky took first place with a time of 9:20.39, touching 3.74 seconds ahead of UNC’s William Deforest.
In the women’s 50-free, Kelsi Worrell took first with an NCAA B-cut time of 22.96, edging UNC’s Sarah Hitchens who finished in 23.33. Louisville swept the top three spots in the men’s 50-free, with Caryle Blondell finishing first with an NCAA B-cut time of 20.15. Matthias Lindenbauer touched at 20.79 to finish second and Rudy Edelen finished third with a time of 20.91.
Tanja Kylliainen won the women’s 100-back with an NCAA B-cut time of 54.29, narrowly defeating UNC’s Hellen Moffitt who finished second with a time of 54.39. Grigory Tarasevich won the men’s 100-back with an NCAA B-cut time of 48.28, while Aaron Greene finished third, coming in at 49.00.
UNC’s Catherine Munch won the women’s 200-breast with a time of 2:16.33. She was followed by Andee Cottrell, who touched at 2:16.92. Louisville took the top two spots in the men’s 200-breast. Carlos Claverie finished first with a time of 1:59.99, while Thomas Dahlia touched second with a time of 2:00.09.
In the women’s 100-fly, Kelsi Worrell took first with an NCAA B-cut time of 53.55 and finished 1.30 second ahead of UNC’s Megan Bestor. Sam Lewis won the men’s 100-fly for UNC in 47.78, however Louisville finished in second, third and fourth place. Pedro Coutinho finished second with an NCAA B-cut time of 48.01, while Josh Quallen finished third in 48.81 and David Boland finished fourth in 48.91.
Andrea Kneppers finished third in the women’s 200-free with a time of 1:50.11. UNC’s Allyn Hardesty won the race in 1:49.28. Trevor Carroll won the men’s 200-free behind an NCAA B-cut time of 1:37.57. UNC’s Ben Colley finished second in 1:38.58, while Matthias Lindenbauer finished third in 1:39.69.
Tanja Kylliainen won the women’s 400-IM with a B-cut time of 4:14.04, while UNC’s Hannah Runyon-Hass finished second, trailing Kylliainen by 5.59 seconds. The men dominated the 400-IM, placing swimmers in the top three spots. Nolan Tesone took first with an NCAA B-cut time of 3:51.79, while Carlos Claverie finished second in 3:59.28. Josh Quallen finished third with a time of 4:01.49.
The women’s relay team of Andrea Kneppers (51.53), Alex Sellers (51.54), Maggie Patterson (50.89) and Rachel Grooms (50.46) took second in the 400-free relay with a combined time of 3:24.42, trailing UNC’s top team by 1.17 seconds. In the men’s 400-free relay, the team of Thomas Dahlia (44.46), Caryle Blondell (43.41), Matthias Lindenbauer (44.18) and Trevor Carroll (44.04) took first with a combined time of 2:56.09, defeating UNC’s top team by 0.76 seconds.
UNC’s Elissa Dawson won the women’s 1-meter diving competition with a score of 323.48. Andrea Acquista was Louisville’s top finisher, coming in third place with a score of 276.82.
In the men’s 3-meter diving competition, UNC’s Jack Nyquist took first with a score of 423.82. Sean Piner finished second behind a score of 364.95, while Ryan Bohn finished sixth with a score of 237.83.
“It was a great weekend and a great crowd,” Albiero added. “It was an incredible environment here for racing, and it says a lot about this community and this culture here, how swimming is well-respected. We’ll have some great meets going forward.”
The Cardinals return to action on Friday, Nov. 14 when they travel to Knoxville, Tenn., to take on Tennessee and Auburn.
North Carolina and Louisville finished up a two-day dual meet at the Ralph Wright Natatorium Saturday afternoon with the Tar Heels prevailing on the women’s side 194-159 and U of L taking a victory on the men’s side 220-133.
UNC’s women improved to 3-1 overall and 2-0 in the ACC. The Cardinal women are now 2-4 overall and 0-1 in the ACC. Carolina’s men are now at the .500 mark at 2-2 overall and 1-1 in the ACC. Louisville is 3-3 overall and 1-0 in league meets.
“Day two of the dual meet with Lousiville started out with just a one-point difference in the women’s meet,” said UNC head coach Rich DeSelm. “We were able to surge ahead and stay ahead. Our women were able to find a way to get a victory. I felt we weren’t as sharp in a lot of places that we need to be to keep progressing to the end of season. I hope in a couple weeks at the Nike Cup we will be a lot sharper.
“Individually, the divers continue to be strong for us with Elissa Dawson winning both events and Michole Timm second place on both boards. Danielle Siverling continues to be competitive in every meet. It’s great to see that kind of leadership from a senior and a captain. And Emma Nunn had a strong meet for us with wins in two distance freestyle events.”
“On men’s side, Louisville is very strong. They were flat out better than we were today,” said DeSelm. “We had a few bright spots but our men need to be sharper to compete with a team like Louisville. Nic Graesser, Ben Colley and Sam Lewis had nice days for us Saturday. Our divers had solid outings, led by Jack Nyquist. We went our fastest 400 free relay of the season with some 43 splits in there to end up the day on a high note.”
Carolina had a pair of divers step up on both boards and deliver a pair of victories as sophomore Jack Nyquist and freshman Elissa Dawson were both two-event winners. Dawson scored 384.08 points on the three-meter board and broke her own school record in the event by nearly 30 points. Her previous record was 355.13 versus Georgia last month.
Carolina’s men won both butterfly events – Ben Colley in the 200 and Sam Lewis in the 100. On the women’s side, Emma Nunn took home first place in the 500 and 1000 freestyles and she placed second in the 200 fly. Carolina swept three other events at 200 yards with Hellen Moffitt take the backstroke, Katie Munch the breaststroke and Ally Hardesty the freestyle. Carolina finished the meet strong with a win in the 400 free relay by Lauren Earp, Ally Hardesty, Sarah Hitchens and Danielle Siverling.
Next up for the Tar Heels is the annual Janis Hape Dowd Nike Cup competition slated for Maurice J. Koury Natatorium in Chapel Hill November 20-22. The meet will follow the ACC/NCAA three-day championship list of events with preliminaries each day at 9:30 a.m. and finals each night at 5:30 p.m.
