Comfort’s Farewell Tour Yields Tar Heels’ 16th ACC Women’s Championship

CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina, February 17. THE North Carolina women's swimming and diving team rewarded long-time Tar Heel head coach Frank Comfort with a welcome retirement gift Saturday night as Carolina captured the 16th Atlantic Coast Conference women's swimming and diving championship of his career at Koury Natatorium.

Comfort, who will retire June 30, 2007, is the winningest coach in ACC history with 16 women's championships and 10 men's championship in his 30 years of coaching at UNC. He will coach the Tar Heel men for the final time in ACC championship competition next week when Carolina hosts the men's championships February 21-24 at Koury Natatorium.

Comfort's 16 women's titles since the initial championship in 1979 are 11 more than any other coach has won in the history of the meet.

The title was North Carolina's first since 2002. North Carolina finished with a team total of 737 points while No. 7-ranked Florida State was second with 642.5 points. Virginia was third with 475 points. The rest of the field had Virginia Tech with 393.5 points, Clemson with 357.5 points, Maryland with 332 points, Miami with 299 points, Duke with 150 points, Georgia Tech with 138 points, NC State with 123.5 points and Boston College with 77 points.

The Tar Heels electrified the capacity crowd at Koury Natatorium in the opening event of the night as Carolina went 1-2-3-7 in the 1650-yard freestyle to move UNC's lead in the team race to 108 points. Sophomore Whitney Sprague won her second individual championship of the meet as she blitzed the field with a school record time of 16:10.02. Sprague had also won the 500-yard freestyle on Thursday night.

Sprague's time was an automatic NCAA qualifying time for the 2007 NCAA Championships next month in Minneapolis, Minn. She broke the old school record of 16:13.88 set by sophomore teammate Nicole O'Donnell in 2005.

Like Sprague, sophomore Lindsay McIlvain had her career best time in the event as she finished second in 16:27.37. Sophomore Nicole O'Donnell was third in 16:33.36 and junior Kristin Oxford took seventh place in a career best time of 16:46.27.

Romy Altman of Florida State took the ACC championship in the 200-yard backstroke with an automatic NCAA qualifying time of 1:57.08. UNC had two swimmers finish in the top five of the event. Freshman Ashley Howard took third place in a career best time of 1:59.35 while sophomore Taylor McFarlane was fifth in 1:59.96. McFarlane had gone a career best 1:59.15 in the preliminaries of the event. Barbara Thomas of Carolina placed 12th in the event after qualifying 16th in the preliminaries. She swam a career best 2:03.36.

Carolina took five of the top 11 places in the 100-yard freestyle led by Eliza Butts' third-place finish in a career best time of 49.97. Megan Steeves was eighth in the championship final in 50.94 after clocking a career best 50.62 in the preliminaries. The Tar Heels went 1-2-3 in the consolation final to take ninth through 11th places. Junior Kelsey Morrissy was 11th in a career best 50.21, sophomore Aubrette Biegel was 10th in 51.04 and senior Meagan Eickman was 11th in career best 51.11 seconds. The ACC title was won by Florida State's Christie Raleigh in a time of 49.56 seconds.

In the 200-yard breaststroke, freshman Alison Clemens made the medals stand for the third time in the championships as she placed third in a time of 2:15.92. Clemens took second Thursday night in the 200-yard individual medley and third Friday night in the 400-yard individual medley. Marissa Nilon was 14th for the Tar Heels in a time of 2:20.26. The individual champion in the event was Virginia Tech's Jessica Botzum in an automatic NCAA qualifying time of 2:13.52.

In the 200-yard butterfly, Tar Heel junior Lindsay Marck captured her second successive ACC championship in the event with a time of 1:59.19. Two Tar Heels also finished in the consolation final with Hannah Mein capturing ninth place overall in 2:01.56 and Sarah Scott taking 14th place in 2:05.25.

Carolina capped off the evening by winning the ACC championship in the 400-yard freestyle relay in an ACC record time of 3:19.44. The winning relay consisted of Eliza Butts, Megan Steeves, Aubrette Biegel and Kelsey Morrissy.

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