ACC Weekly Preview: NC State Heads North, Florida State Travels West

Eight different ACC swimming and diving teams will be in action this weekend, but only two will be competing at the same meet: Miami and Pitt. Among the highlights of the schedule: NC State faces off with Wisconsin, Florida State travels west to Tempe to meet the Arizona State Sun Devils and North Carolina visits geographic rival South Carolina.

NC State brings one of the best combined programs in the country to Madison, and the team had no trouble last week in dispatching Duke and Penn State in its home opener, even with Ryan Held hardly participating. The Badger men should be no match for Held, Justin Ress, Andreas Vazaios and co.

The women’s meet should feature some interesting races with Hannah Moore against Cierra Runge, but once again, the Wolfpack women are the deeper squad.

As for the Seminoles and the Sun Devils, both teams possess stronger men’s squads than women’s, and both men’s squads are best known for freestyle prowess. But as well as Chad Mylin and Kanoa Kaleoaloha have performed in the early going, they will have to go up against Cameron Craig, the ASU sophomore who split under 42 on the 400 free relay this past weekend at the USA College Challenge.

As for the Tar Heels, they will make the drive four hours south to Columbia, S.C., where the Gamecock men will counter with distance aces Fynn Minuth and Akram Mahmoud. North Carolina should score big in diving, but expect a challenge to keep pace with the SC men.

The Tar Heel women, meanwhile, should be favored slightly, with World University Games sprinter Caroline Baldwin off to a strong start in her senior year and breaststroker Caroline Hauder coming off a strong showing in the opener against Georgia.

UNC has not competed since traveling to Athens for their first SEC dual meet against the Bulldogs, so their layoff will end up at almost three weeks.

Full Meet Schedule:

Bridgewater State at Boston College, 6 p.m. Wednesday
North Carolina at South Carolina, 4 p.m. Thursday
Miami, Michigan State & James Madison University at Pitt, 4 p.m. Friday
NC State at Wisconsin, 4 p.m. Friday & 10 a.m. Saturday (central time)
Notre Dame at Purdue, 5 p.m. Friday
Delta State at Georgia Tech, 11 a.m. Saturday
Florida State at Arizona State, 11 a.m. Saturday (mountain standard time)

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