After winning the program’s sixth consecutive ACC Championship and finishing the season with a perfect dual meet record, the No. 10 Virginia women’s swimming and diving team will face one final challenge — the NCAA Championship meet in Indianapolis.
Most recently, the Cavaliers dominated the field at the ACC Championship in Greensboro, N.C. Virginia finished with a total of 832 points, nearly 300 points ahead of second place Virginia Tech. In addition to being an ACC record sixth consecutive, the title was also No. 11 for the program all-time.
“We’ve had such a good year,” coach Mark Bernardino said. “I hope we’re able to have several individuals swim well and score individually, and have several relays to perform well and score.”
The Cavaliers (9-0, 3-0 ACC) qualified 11 swimmers for the meet, which is tied for the sixth highest representation among competing schools. The only schools with more qualifying swimmers are No. 3 California (12), No. 4 Florida (12), No. 2 Georgia (17), No. 5 Minnesota (14), and No. 1 Texas A&M (13). The ACC will be represented by a number of other schools, most notably North Carolina, which will send 10 athletes to the meet.
As opposed to the the ACC Championship, the NCAA Championship does not put a high emphasis on total team depth. Bernardino said that while the Cavaliers’ ranking was a fair metric of their dual meet and conference championship performances, he was not sure how their success would translate to this meet.
“It’s a curious meet in that there is more of an emphasis on individual performance than team performance in many regards,” Bernardino said. “One or two super individual athletes can put significant points on the boards and help their team place very, very highly at this meet.”
The Cavaliers will look for their ACC individual event champions to anchor their scoring efforts, including senior Lauren Perdue, sophomores Ellen Williamson and Kelly Offutt and freshman Courtney Bartholomew. In addition, a slew of Virginia swimmers nabbed podium finishes at ACCs, each having the potential to put up points at the meet as well. Given the high level of competition at this meet, however, top finishes will be hard to come by.
“NCAAs come with a different type of pressure than ACCs,” junior Rachel Naurath said. “It’s a lot harder to make it back to finals, so there’s really a lot more pressure to do well in [preliminary races].”
Perdue, who competed at the London Olympics this past summer, was unable to compete at the national championship last season due to surgery. In her first two seasons, she made it out of time trials in the 50, 100 and 200 free, and placed second overall in the 200 in 2011. After winning the 200 free at ACCs this year, Purdue will look to put up a similar performance at NCAAs.
Williamson, Bartholomew and sophomore Shaun Casey will look to lead the Cavaliers in stroke events. Bartholomew claimed ACC individual titles in the 100 and 200 backstroke events, Williamson won the conference title in the 200 IM while finishing second in the 200 back and Casey finished second in the both the 200 IM and 400 IM.
Offutt, along with Naurath, will serve as Virginia’s go-to weapons in the distance events. Offutt claimed titles in the 500 and 1650 free at the ACC Championship, while Naurath finished runner-up in each of those events.
“As a team we definitely want to finish top 10 at this meet,” Naurath said. “Improving on peoples’ times from ACCs is always a goal as well. For myself, I’d really like to take a step forward from where I was last year and possibly make a few finals.”
Of the 11 Virginia swimmers who qualified for the meet, five will make their first ever appearance at NCAAs: freshmen Bartholomew, Hanne Borgerson and Haley Durmer, and sophomores Casey and Offutt. Durmer said she was excited but also nervous for the challenge, and that the more experienced swimmers were very helpful in taking the first timers under their wings.
“There a lot of us who are new to NCAAs — I guess we’re known as the ‘freshies’,” Durmer said. “Because this is our first time going, I felt the upperclassmen really adopted us, making us even closer with the team.”
Last year the Cavaliers finished 17th at the NCAA Championship, but the team would like to see the program improve from that and show that they deserve to be mentioned as one of the nation’s premiere programs.
“This meet is an opportunity for us to give a statement on the national level,” Naurath said. “It’s one thing to win your conference, but it’s quite another thing to place top 10 at NCAAs, which is our goal.”
The meet begins Thursday and will run through Saturday with prelims taking place in the mornings and finals taking place in the evenings.
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