Morning Splash: NC State Women Chasing Nine-Time ACC Champion Cavaliers

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Photo Courtesy: Swimming World

By David Rieder.

When North Carolina State hosted Virginia on Jan. 28 in the final dual meet of the regular season for both teams, the Wolfpack women were looking for an upset win over the dominant power of the ACC for the last decade. Yes, the Cavaliers were—and still are—the nine-time defending conference championships.

But last season, the quickly-improving NC State women weren’t that far back at ACCs (just over 150 points), and the team’s ninth-place finish at the NCAA championships was just four spots behind Virginia (fifth). It also marked the Wolfpack’s highest national finish since 1982—long before Braden Holloway took over as the program’s head coach in 2011.

“I think each year you want your program to get better and find a way to take the next step,” Holloway said. “When the women got runner-up to UVA [at ACCs] and then got top-ten at NCAAs, I think that put a new expectation on the women that they put on themselves. I think they started to believe that they could accomplish more for this year as soon as last year finished.”

The Wolfpack women had continued to make strides during the 2016-17 season. After swimming in a pair of finals at Olympic Trials, Hannah Moore had been swimming like one of the top swimmers in the country over a wide range of events, while senior Alexia Zevnik was as consistent as ever in the backstrokes and sprint freestyles.

In a dominant win over North Carolina the day before the UVA meet, Kayla Brumbaum had swum the best dual meet times of her career in both the 100 (59.79) and 200 breast (2:10.42), while two high profile additions—freshman sprinter Ky-Lee Perry and sophomore backstroker Elise Haan, a transfer from Florida Gulf Coast—had been prolific throughout the season.

Meanwhile, the Cavaliers got their best swimmer back after a whirlwind summer that twice took her to the Olympic podium. When Leah Smith returned to the pool this fall, Virginia head coach Augie Busch saw no Olympic hangover.

“She took a few weeks off—we gave her some time off in August and even in early September—and she can compartmentalize really well,” Busch said. “I don’t think she was stuck in the Olympic experience anymore after she came back full-bore, which was mid-September.”

Against NC State, the Cavaliers would have seniors Smith, Kaitlyn Jones and Laura Simon—all individual ACC champions last season—all competing in their final college dual meet. Still, Busch knew his team was in for a tough one.

“[NC State] gave us a good challenge last year,” Busch said. “I’m very aware that their front line is formidable to the point where you could easily get knocked in a dual meet by them, and then they’ve got more depth than they ever have and a great senior class,

In that dual meet clash, NC State’s explosive sprinters plus a hostile crowd at Casey Aquatic Center were out in full force. A pair of early wins for NC State—a dominant effort in the 400 medley relay and Zevnik’s touch-out win over UVA’s Morgan Hill in the 200 free—set the tone.

“I don’t people they understand how much emotion our team competes with, and this is all year long,” Holloway said. “They thrive off any type of momentum.”

But soon enough, UVA started to pile up the wins—Smith won the 500 and 1000 free, as expected, and fellow Jones touched first in both butterflys—but NC State’s Moore picked up a huge win in the final individual event of the day when she beat Smith in the 400 IM.

NC State was still down 143-140 and had to have a win in the 200 free relay to win the meet. But Perry promptly led off in a quick 22.23 to put the Wolfpack ahead by almost a full second, and there would be no comeback.

Round one to the Wolfpack, but round two still to be determined at this week’s ACC championships in Atlanta—the meet that NC State has won twice ever (in 1979 and 1980) and the one that UVA has won each of the last nine years.

Busch says that his staff has deliberately avoided mentioning the possibility of extending the conference winning streak to ten years, but he does admit that breaking into double digits would have some special meaning for the program.

In order to pull it off, the Cavaliers have to move on from that dual meet loss quickly, with just 15 days’ turnaround time from the dual meet to the first race in Atlanta. But Busch wants to make sure that his women don’t forget how it felt to come up short that afternoon in Raleigh.

“Hopefully it made them a little hungrier,” he said. “It’s a dual meet, and if you are saying it’s the best thing that could have happened to us, okay, I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but those are empty words unless this ratchets up our focus, our hunger, our competitive edge. If it does those things, then I agree—it could be a great thing that happened to us. If not, it’s just empty words.”

Regardless of how this two-team race turns out, it’s clear now that NC State’s women have joined the school’s men’s program as among the best in the country. The Wolfpack men’s quick ascendance, which has resulted in two straight conference championships and a fourth-place finish at last year’s NCAAs, has been impressive, but Holloway believes that his women’s team has actually made even greater strides since his staff took over in 2011.

“I don’t think people give our women’s team as much credit as they do the men,” he said. Six years ago, our women were at the bottom. I actually think they’ve probably improved more than the men have based on how far down they were. I don’t think it’s any different, the dynamics, from the men. The process has been a little behind, but it’s been growing at the same rate.”

Check out the psych sheet (pre-cut) by clicking here. All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.

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Jody Healy-Brumbaum

7 years ago

GO WOLFPACK WOMEN!!!! You got this #STATEMENT