The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams are suiting up for their first home meet of the season today at the Aquatic & Fitness Center, where they will face off against one of their biggest rivals: Virginia Tech.
Last year in Blacksburg, the Cavalier men’s team won 172-128, and the women earned 188 points to the Hokies’ 110. As the score reflects, it was a powerful day for the Virginia women, who broke four pool records. The team of junior Mei Christensen, junior Katherine McDonnell, freshman Lauren Smart, and senior Kristen Wallace posted a 1:43.62 in the 200 medley relay. Other records were set by junior Jen Narum in the 1000 freestyle,senior Megan Evo in the 200 butterfly, and Christensen in the 200 backstroke.
Key swimmers from the men’s team in the teams’ last matchup were sophomore Matt McLean and junior John Azar. Azar helped the team with two wins in the 200 individual medley and the 200 breaststroke, while McLean boosted the Cavaliers’ score by winning the 100 and 200 freestyle events.
Though Virginia dominated the lanes last year, a team is never guaranteed continued success as a new season opens up, and the Cavaliers will have to work to grab another victory today. Virginia Tech is coming off an impressive effort against West Virginia last weekend which featured both its men’s and women’s teams winning by more than 90 points.
“I was very impressed with Virginia Tech’s performance this past weekend,” Virginia coach Mark Bernardino said. “They showed good early speed. The key to success for us is to lay with our depth, and we will have to swim well with our experienced upperclass athletes. All of our swimmers will have to be on the front edge of all of the races.”
Finding aggressiveness should not be a challenge with fifth-year senior Ryan Hurley back on the team. Hurley took last year off to train for the Olympic trials, so tough competition is nothing new to him.
“It’s tremendous to have him back,” Bernardino said. “He was one of the captains as a junior and elected captain again this year. He has NCAA, ACC Championship and international experience. He has an exceptional personality and great work ethic. He knows how to work with a team as a leader, and we desperately needed a national-class breaststroker, and he fits that bill very well.”
Bernardino is not the only person excited to have Hurley back on the team. Though the Olympic experience was undoubtedly rewarding, Hurley is glad to be competing with his teammates after being away from the collegiate swimming atmosphere for a year.
“It feels great,” Hurley said. “It’s definitely much more fun, exciting and a rewarding experience to be swimming with the team again.”
Hurley had standout performances in the 100 and 200 breaststroke events during the 2005-06 season, and he has only gotten faster. The team hopes that Hurley’s speed in the breaststroke leg of the 200 medley relay will help the Cavaliers advance past the Hokies in one of Tech’s strongest events.
“Tech has a great 200 medley relay,” Hurley said. “It’s faster than ours and it’s the first event of the meet. We’re looking to win that event and some of the sprint freestyle [races] because they’re known as sprinters, so it would be great to upset them in that event as well.”
That upset could be likely if the Cavaliers perform as strongly Saturday as they have so far this year. Virginia started the season off with two consecutive wins last weekend in South Carolina, defeating both South Carolina and ACC-rival Clemson in their home pools. The women’s team, seeded at a strong No. 10 in the nation, earned a 169-131 victory against Clemson, while the No. 15 ranked men left the Tigers in the dust with a score of 189-105.
The Virginia swimming and diving teams are going into Saturday’s meet ready to compete in hopes of earning the reputation as the stronger side of a notorious rivalry.
“They’re a solid team, but we’re really strong this year,” Hurley said. “I think we’re ready to make a pretty big statement Wednesday. I’m really optimistic on how well we’re going to do.”
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