Baseball has the Red Sox-Yankees. Basketball has the Celtics-Lakers. Football has the Cowboys-Redskins. Swimming has Virginia-North Carolina?
Every sport possesses a hallmark rivalry, and in the world of collegiate swimming, few matchups inspire the same intensity as the annual border clash between the Cavaliers and Tar Heels. Over the past quarter-century, the two teams have combined for more than 40 ACC team championships, and Saturday at the Aquatic & Fitness Center, Virginia will play host to its bitter rival from the South in a duel that promises to hold conference title implications.
“I expect it to be a heated, intense, knockdown, drag-em-out, 15-round heavyweight championship kind of fight,” Virginia coach Mark Bernardino said.
Though the Virginia women emerged victorious last year in Chapel Hill after trumping the Tar Heels 191-109, the Cavalier men were not as fortunate. The meet came down to the final relay, and although Virginia claimed the top spot in the event, North Carolina managed to secure second and third places to earn just enough points to hand the Cavaliers a heartbreaking 151-149 loss.
Because Virginia captured both men’s and women’s ACC team titles last February, tensions between the two schools continue to run high.
“I can’t even hear the name [North Carolina] without cringing,” fifth-year senior Pat Mellors said.
The storied rivalry traces its roots to three decades ago, when Bernardino took the reins from Ron Good in 1978. Always known for its swimming legacy, North Carolina unabashedly ran up the score on a Virginia squad that had yet to find its feet under its new head coach.
Gradually, however, Bernardino’s team gained ground on the Tar Heels, and in 1987, the Cavalier men won their first-ever ACC crown. The women joined the men atop the podium three years later, formally establishing Virginia as a serious conference contender and as one of North Carolina’s most formidable rivals.
Though the Cavaliers have turned the tide as of late, winning an unprecedented 16 conference championships between the men and women since 1990, the two rivals continually trade bragging rights in the annual regular-season contest.
“It’s not so petty to say we’re getting vengeance for the past two decades,” Mellors said. “But we’ve had this rivalry for a really long time, and it’s really important for our sport.”
As in seasons past, the two teams will enter Saturday’s meet ranked in the top 15 in the country, and both will be laying undefeated conference records on the line. Virginia hopes to rebound from a Jan. 7 loss to SEC foe Florida. North Carolina, on the other hand, will attempt to build off Winter Break success that saw the Tar Heel women place second in the Swimming World Carnival and the men finish fourth in a loaded field at the Dallas Morning News Invitational.
As animosity on the pool deck has increased throughout the years, often resulting in the exchange of words or even an occasional push, the intensity in the pool also has risen to new levels.
The North Carolina women, in particular, enter Saturday’s matchup looking strong. Sophomore Rebecca Kane was named ACC Swimmer of the Week after winning three events in the Tar Heels’ dual meet victory against Clemson Jan. 10, and freshman Layne Brodie, an Olympic Trials qualifier in the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke, gives the Tar Heels an added boost in the specialty events.
“This meet was the greatest moment of the entirety of last year,” said Virginia sophomore Elizabeth Shaw, the school record holder in the 100- and 200-yard butterfly. “I think there’s going to be more close races this year than last year, so we’re just going to work on getting those extra tenths and those extra seconds.”
Shaw and junior Mei Christensen, who has already set conference records in the 100- and 200-yard backstroke this season, will lead the Cavalier women, while the men’s squad will be paced by its usual pack of strong distance freestylers, headlined by last year’s ACC Swimmer of the Year, sophomore Matt McLean. Virginia will also look to hit high notes in the 200-yard medley and 400-yard free relays that bookend the meet.
With Saturday’s clash against the Tar Heels looming largest on the horizon, Virginia also must try not to overlook its Sunday test against yet another team from across the border. The Cavaliers will host Duke in the final home meet for the squad’s nine graduating seniors, and although the matchup with the Blue Devils isn’t quite as scintillating as the contest against North Carolina, Virginia will be using the meet to hone the squad’s focus heading into next month’s ACC Championships.
The ACCs are “three intense days of racing,” Bernardino said. “We’re going to look at Duke as if it’s day two of intense racing. How we approach the entire weekend is part of the mind-set to prepare ourselves and ready ourselves for the conference championship.”
For Cavalier senior Lee Robertson, an All-American last year in the 200-yard butterfly, there could not be a sweeter way to end his collegiate career.
“It’s nice to end my career with a Carolina weekend,” Robertson said.
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