It’s the last week of ACC dual meets before we move into championship season, and that means two things: senior day presentations before almost every meet and some of the top ACC rivalries come to swimming as NC State welcomes North Carolina before the Tar Heels head home to face Duke.<\/p>\n
The dual meet season has not been kind to North Carolina so far. The women’s and men’s teams have both\u00a0swum against Georgia, Tennessee, Louisville, Navy and Virginia. They swept Navy and were swept by the other four. So this weekend will mark one last chance to pick up a win against an ACC or Power-Five opponent.<\/p>\n
North Carolina’s trip to Raleigh will be its first since the 2015 meet against NC State when the rising Wolfpack men’s squad dominated their rivals, 180-118. That, of course, was just a precursor to NC State’s two ACC championships and a top-five finish at the NCAA championships last season.<\/p>\n
This year’s No. 3 NC State team is packed with talent:\u00a0Ryan Held<\/strong>,\u00a0Anton Ipsen<\/strong> and\u00a0Hennessey Stuart<\/strong> are just a few of those names. The UNC men’s team\u00a0has struggled this year, most recently losing at home to Virginia for the first time in four years. Senior transfer\u00a0Jorden Merrilees<\/strong> has been a standout in the distance events, but NC State counters with Ipsen and\u00a0Adam Linker<\/strong>. This meet could end up one-sided.<\/p>\n The women’s meet will be more competitive, as the UNC women\u00a0were just edged out by the Wolfpack at an invitational in Greensboro earlier this year, 1938-1845.5. Senior\u00a0Hellen Moffitt<\/strong> and junior sprinter\u00a0Caroline Baldwin<\/strong> will lead\u00a0the Tar Heels against NC State and Duke, while NC State’s sprint corps remains strong to go along with Olympic Trials finalist\u00a0Hannah Moore\u00a0<\/strong>in the distance and IM races.<\/p>\n A day later, at UNC’s senior day, Duke makes the short trek down 15-501 to Chapel Hill. Across all sports, Duke-Carolina rivalry has been one of the best in country but not so much in swimming. The Duke men last beat UNC in 1939, and the Blue Devil women have\u00a0never<\/em> won against the Tar Heels.<\/p>\n It won’t be shocking if one or both of those streaks is broken this weekend. The Duke women have strong depth in the sprints and the butterfly events (particularly with\u00a0Maddie Rusch<\/strong>,\u00a0Leah Goldman<\/strong> and\u00a0Alyssa Marsh<\/strong>) that could help them keep up with North Carolina.<\/p>\n On the men’s side, it’s breaststroke depth (led by\u00a0Peter Kropp<\/strong>) and sprint depth (sophomore\u00a0Yusuke Legard<\/strong> has made a jump in year two) that would be keys for an upset of the Tar Heels. Both men’s and women’s squads for both schools have strong divers, although UNC’s\u00a0Elissa Dawson<\/strong> and\u00a0Jack Nyquist\u00a0<\/strong>are the best of the bunch.<\/p>\n Also on Saturday, NC State stays at home to welcome the Virginia Cavaliers. Yes, one week after being in town to swim UNC and Duke, UVA is coming back to Raleigh for a meet against NC State. Although the UVA men are certainly back on the upswing after a three-year dry spell (Zach Fong<\/strong>,\u00a0Brendan Casey<\/strong> and\u00a0Sam Magnan<\/strong> are big reasons why), the Cavaliers will likely struggle to keep up with the Wolfpack, particularly in Raleigh.<\/p>\n The NC State women will likely face similar struggles in keeping up with Virginia, and this will be the final college dual meet anywhere for\u00a0Leah Smith<\/strong> and\u00a0Kaitlyn Jones<\/strong>. NC State looks like the second-best women’s team in the conference, just as it was last year, but the gap to the Cavaliers remains wide.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, up in the Midwest, Louisville travels to Bloomington to take on Indiana in what should be a great test for the Cardinals. The latest CSCAA poll had Mallory Comerford<\/strong> and\u00a0the Louisville women at No. 10, four spots ahead of\u00a0Lilly King<\/strong> and Indiana.<\/p>\n The men’s poll ranked Indiana No. 4 and Louisville No. 7.\u00a0Backstroker\u00a0Grigory Tarasevich<\/strong> and breaststroker\u00a0Carlos Claverie<\/strong> are the headliners for the Cardinals, but the biggest test of the weekend will come in the freestyles, where\u00a0Trevor Carroll<\/strong> will be tasked with keeping up with the Hoosiers’\u00a0Blake Pieroni<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The final ACC meet of the weekend will take place\u00a0in Atlanta when Georgia Tech welcomes Florida State and the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) to town. The match-up between the No. 18 FSU men and No. 25 GT men should be\u00a0plenty competitive with\u00a0Moises Loschi<\/strong> and\u00a0Rodrigo Castro\u00a0<\/strong>having solid years for the Yellow Jackets and sprinters\u00a0Chad Mylin\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Jason McCormick<\/strong> leading an impressive Seminole sprint group.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Pittsburgh will host Duquesne, Carnegie Mellon, Clarion, California University and St. Francis (Pa.) in the Western Pennsylvania Invite, and Notre Dame will also be hosting a two-day meet, the Shamrock Invitational.<\/p>\n In a battle for Boston bragging rights, Boston College heads into the city to visit Boston University, and Nova Southeastern will take on Miami in Coral Gables.<\/p>\n It’s the last week of ACC dual meets before we move into championship season, and that means two things: senior day presentations before almost every meet and some of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":192363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[58787,31284,28538,37859,2194,11298,35925,60101,9396,32130,43540,28598,37326,37423,27622,25526,27278,25513,24824,25449,31148,32355,41529,59122,43420],"class_list":["post-238432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college","tag-2016-17-acc-conference-swimming-and-diving-coverage","tag-adam-linker","tag-alyssa-marsh","tag-anton-ipsen","tag-boston-college","tag-boston-university","tag-brendan-casey","tag-california-university","tag-carnegie-mellon","tag-caroline-baldwin","tag-elissa-dawson","tag-hannah-moore","tag-hellen-moffitt","tag-hennessey-stuart","tag-jack-nyquist","tag-kaitlyn-jones","tag-leah-goldman","tag-leah-smith","tag-maddie-rusch","tag-nova-southeastern","tag-peter-kropp","tag-ryan-held","tag-sam-magnan","tag-yusuke-legard","tag-zach-fong"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nFull schedule:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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