ACC Weekly Swim Preview: Duke–Florida State Cancelled

Robbie Whitacre competes in the 200yd backstroke at the Hawkeye Invitational Swimming and Diving meet in Iowa City on Sunday, December 7, 2014 (Justin Torner/Freelance for Notre Dame Athletics)

Photo Courtesy: Notre Dame

This weekend will feature the first full slate of ACC action with the majority of teams in action. Dual meets, tri meets, invites and relay meets are all on the schedule for October 7-9.

UPDATE 10/7: Duke and Florida State will no longer be in action this weekend after the Blue Devils cancelled their trip to Tallahassee in response to Hurricane Matthew making landfall in Florida.

Meet of the Week: Dennis Stark Relay Meet

Notre Dame hosts meets both Friday and Saturday, but the event at 5 p.m. Friday is the can’t-miss action this weekend. The Dennis Stark Relay meet, named in honor of Notre Dame’s first coach for both its women’s and men’s program, features 10 swimming relays and two diving relays—yes, diving relays.

Notre Dame will host the men and women from IUPUI, Wright State and Olivet Navarene, as well as the Oakland men, Bowling Green women and, in their inaugural season, the Indiana State women.

Events on the program include traditional events like the 200 free relay, 400 medley relay and 800 free relay, along with some more unusual relays: 3×100 of each stroke, 4×100 IM and 3×500 free.

The Irish, in their first full season as a combined women’s and men’s program under the leadership of Mike Litzinger, opened their season last week with an outdoor long course meet against Michigan State and Iowa in East Lansing. The Irish freshmen stood out, as Abbie Dolan, Aaron Schulz and Reilly Lanigan all opened their collegiate careers with individual wins.

After the relay meet wraps up Friday, Indiana State and Oakland will stick around for a more traditional meet Saturday at 11 a.m.

Elsewhere…

Two ACC powerhouses will square off with big-name opponents this weekend. The Louisville Cardinals will travel north to Ann Arbor, Mich., for a unique tripleheader. Even with the graduation of Kelsi Worrell, the Louisville women figure to be strong still with Andrea Cottrell and Mallory Comerford leading the way. And the Cardinal men return their core of Grigory Tarasevich, Carlos Claverie and Trevor Carroll that put two medley relays in A-finals at the NCAA championships.

And then there’s North Carolina, which hosts Georgia Friday afternoon in Chapel Hill. The Tar Heels lost a massive group of seniors after Rich DeSelm’s teams swam so well at both ACCs and NCAAs last year, but they do have Olympic Trials finalist Hellen Moffitt coming back. The Bulldogs, of course, have senior Olympic medalists Chase Kalisz, Olivia Smoliga and Chantal van Landeghem on their side.

Read more about Louisville vs. Michigan (our Big-Ten Meet of the Week) here and here, and find out more about UNC vs. Georgia (our SEC Meet of the Week) here.

Virginia Tech at Florida Gulf Coast Invite

The Hokies will be migrating south to start October at the FGCU Invite. On the men’s side, a pair of individual ACC champions from last year, Robert Owen and Brandon Fiala, lead the way, and Klaudia Nazieblo, who was twice a runner-up at ACCs last year, figures to headline the IM and butterfly events this weekend while joining seniors Maggie Gruber and Jessica Hespeler as key scoring leaders all season.

~~Duke & Minnesota at Florida State~~

The Noles are making their debut at home Saturday at 2 p.m. with a new coaching staff led by Neal Studd. A pair of seniors leading the charge on the men’s side as Jason Grooms and diver Dylan Grisell both performed well at NCAAs last year. All of FSU’s women at NCAAs last year, though, were freshmen—Meg Brown, Summer Finke and Cassidy Gebhart—and all are coming back for more.

The Blue Devils, meanwhile, will be led by juniors Leah Goldman and Isa Paez—both NCAA qualifiers their first two years—as well as senior sprinter Maddie Rusch. For the men, breaststroker Peter Kropp and Olympic Trials semifinalist Michael Miller both figure to score big points as they get their senior seasons underway.

Minnesota was originally scheduled to attend, but the Golden Gophers pulled out Thursday with Hurricane Matthew looming. ~~Duke, however, decided to still make the trip to Tallahassee.~~ Duke then announced Friday morning that the meet was off altogether. The Seminoles will wait to host Florida Thursday, while Duke will make its season debut at a quad meet at Virginia Tech Oct. 21.

Other Meets

Georgia Tech at Harvard, Friday, 3 p.m.
Georgia Tech & Pittsburgh at Boston College, Saturday, 5 p.m.
Bryant at Boston College, Sunday, 1 p.m.

Defending ACC champions Virginia (women) and NC State (men) will not make their debuts in interscholastic competition for another two weeks.

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