The No. 11 Virginia women's swimming and diving team hopes to earn its fourth-straight conference title at the ACC Championship meet in Atlanta, Ga., this week.
The senior members of the Cavaliers' women's squad have won the ACC Championship every season since they arrived on Grounds in the fall of 2007. No women's team in Virginia's history has captured four consecutive conference titles.
"There will be 10 hunters at this meet and we are the hunted," Virginia coach Mark Bernardino said. "It is far easier to be the hunter than the hunted, and how we handle the target on our back will be the difference."
The hunting started last night with the 800 freestyle medley and 200 freestyle medley events. The Cavaliers currently reside in second place in the ACC Championship standings behind North Carolina after touching first in the 800 and finishing fifth in the 200. The squad will try to chip into the Tar Heels' 74-68 lead in the individual and team events scheduled to take place today, tomorrow and Saturday.
Virginia (6-2, 3-0 ACC), sandwiched between No. 22 Florida State (10-1, 3-0 ACC) and No. 12 North Carolina (7-2, 4-1 ACC) in the conference, has remained undefeated in the ACC all season, but the Tar Heels and Seminoles will enter the pool with high hopes to hand Virginia an untimely ACC loss.
As anticipated, tensions were extremely high when the rival Tar Heels came to Charlottesville Jan. 22, but the women were able to emerge from the meet with a 161.5-138.5 victory.
"North Carolina is an outstanding team," Bernardino said. "They are deep and very, very talented and on paper are our equal. It's just going to come down to whether or not our team will be up to the test."
Virginia has not competed against Florida State yet this year, but the Cavaliers are prepared to face a fierce group of Seminole swimmers.
"Florida State is going to come at us in some different directions than North Carolina, and, in many ways, the collective energies of the ACC against the defending champions is what we have to watch out for," Bernardino said.
Although the championship roster is full of experienced veterans, a few of the newest members of the team also will get the opportunity to continue the Cavaliers' conference dominance. Freshman Rachel Naurath is especially eager to continue the winning tradition in her first ACC title outing. In just one season with the Cavaliers, Naurath has already recorded top-10 all-time Virginia finishes in the 500 freestyle, the 1000 freestyle and the 200 butterfly.
"Winning [three straight ACC titles] is something really unbelievably impressive that I really look up to, and that I hope my class can continue," Naurath said.
Not knowing what to expect can be challenging for the young swimmers, especially when they have such a high standard to uphold, Bernardino said. Bernardino also noted that some of the older members of his squad are also beginning to feel the pressure associated with the lofty task at hand.
"I've only seen them excited and challenged," Bernardino said. "I sense for the first time in their careers some nerves; the magnitude of what they are trying to achieve is starting to sink in a little bit. I hope they can take that nervous energy and use it in a positive way."
Despite the added pressure, the Cavaliers remain certain they can rise to the challenge of making program history.
"This is the hardest we have ever worked," senior Liz Shaw said. "From the training aspect, everybody has really stepped it up this year."
Sophomore Lauren Perdue will be defending her 2010 titles in the 50, 100 and 200 freestyle events, while senior Amanda Faulkner will hope to protect her own reign in the 200 IM.
Shaw hopes the effort that Perdue, Faulkner and the rest of the team have been putting in this season, coupled with the squad's dedication to one another, will bring Virginia a ninth conference title.\n"It's one thing to be the best of friends outside the pool, but it's another to show how much you care about your team in having the same goals and wanting to achieve things for each other," Shaw said. "It's about showing that passion in the pool and getting excited about every time we race together. That's the thing I have been most focused on teaching them this year"
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