In a heated ACC competition Saturday, Virginia's swimming and diving teams split with North Carolina. While the No. 11 Virginia men won, 139.5-103.5, the No. 12 women lost for the first time in 26 dual meets, 175-125.
The Virginia men (6-1, 2-0 ACC), the 2000 ACC champions, won 9 of 13 events, kept alive their three-year winning streak at the Aquatic and Fitness Center and ruined the No. 14 Tar Heels' perfect ACC record. North Carolina dropped to 4-2 overall and 2-1 in the ACC.
"It was a satisfying win," said Virginia senior Jamie Grimes, who placed second (9 minutes, 7.73 seconds) in the 1000-yard freestyle behind the Cavaliers' Dan DeMarco (9:07.25). "We have been preparing and training to win. This meet was supposed to be closely matched, which helped our guys to get really pumped up. But the most exciting thing to me was to see our team really come together and work as a unit."
Virginia freshman Luke Anderson won the 50 free (20.46) and the 100 free (44.95) and led off for the winning 400 free relay team (3:01.80). Freshman Ian Pritchard also gathered two victories with wins in the 200 free (1:40.07) and 500 free (4:28.17).
Freshman Luke Wagner, who also won the 200 backstroke (1:47.21), freshman Jon Haag and senior Troy Johnson were the other three legs of Anderson's winning 400 free relay. Sophomores Guy Yimsomruay (200 individual medley) and Dan Zurowki (200 butterfly) were the other Virginia first-place finishers.
Although sophomore Cara Lane broke her own AFC record in the 200 butterfly with a time of 1:59.21, the women (5-1, 2-1 ACC) did not fare so well in losing 10 of 16 events to the No. 9 Tar Heels. Lane also won the 500 free (4:47.43). Sophomore Alison Sharp won both diving events, and sophomore Mirjana Bosevka (1000 free) and senior Megan Iffland (200 back) each won an event. Virginia coach Mark Bernardino said he was pleased with the women's performance.
"The men had a tremendous meet, but the women swam really well," Bernardino said. "There were four strategic races which we needed to win in order to win overall, and we lost those four races by less than a second combined. That would have made the meet much closer."
The last time the Cavaliers lost a dual meet was 1997.
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