The Cardinals picked up two relay medals and two diving finalists in the first day of competition at the ACC Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships at the McAuley Aquatic Center on the campus of Georgia Tech.
The Cardinals stand in second place with 149 points, just behind UNC’s 153. Duke follows with 144, Virginia Tech 134, Miami 127, NC State 126, Florida State 124, Notre Dame 106, Virginia 102, Georgia Tech 90, Pitt 88, Boston College 62, and Clemson 27.
“The real good news is that we had good relays tonight with great room for improvement at the NCAA Championships. Obviously, Mallory Comerford’s split in the 800 Free Relay was special. We had quite a few new faces playing important roles and that bodes well for the second session,” said UofL head coach Arthur Albiero.
In the first event of the evening the Cardinals took silver with a 1:35.69, almost a full second faster of their qualifying time of 1:36.52. Alina Kendzior (24.60) was first in the water, handing over fifth place after the backstroke event, Andrea Cottrell (26.42) made up three spots, touching second after backstroke. Nastja Govejsek (23.15) held on to second in the fly and Casey Fanz (21.52) was in hot pursuit down the stretch. NC State won the event with an ACC Conference and Meet Record time with a mark of 1:34.89, making it the second fastest time in the country thus far. Virginia, the top seed entering the meet, was disqualified.
Molly Fears snuck into the finals of the 3-meter diving. The freshman qualified eighth and went on to finish eighth with a 252.10. Andrea Acquista was 10th in the 3-meter diving with a score of 290.05.
Daniel Fecteau, who qualified fourth to make the finals in the men’s 1-meter springboard after a last minute dive change, went on to move up to sixth in the finals with a school-best finish in the event with a score of 319.35. Notre Dame’s Joe Coumos’ claimed gold for the Irish, the first ACC title for a Notre Dame diver since the Irish joined the league. The men’s diving championship is competed this week and the scores will carry forward
In the 800-Free relay, Cards win Bronze in 800-free relay with a 7:01.62! Rachael Bradford-Feldman led off with a split of 1:47.21 for fifth. Mallory Comerford laid down the fastest split of the field with a 1.41.12 to move the Cards to second. Sophie Cattermole went 1:46.57 and Abigail Houck boarded an anchor split of 1:46.72. Led by Olympian Leah Smith, Virginia won the event with a 6:56.21, shaving 3.46 seconds off its qualifying time.
Tuesday’s action gets underway at 10 a.m. with the prelims for the 500 free, 200 individual medley, 50 free, and women’s 1-meter, with doors open to spectators at 9 a.m. The finals for those events, in addition to the 200 freestyle relay, will begin at 6 p.m.
For more on each of Monday’s four events, visit the live blog: http://theacc.co/sd17recap0213.
LINKS
Championship Page
http://theacc.co/sdchamps
Schedule of Events
http://theacc.co/sd17events
Fan Guide
http://theacc.co/sd17fanguide
Prelim Results
http://theacc.co/sd17prelim0213
Nancy Allison Worley
Associate Director, Sports Information
University of Louisville Athletics
