This week in ACC swimming and diving, eight teams will be in action, mostly in dual or tri-meet settings, but two will be in Dallas for one of the prime meets of the early-season slate: the women’s-only SMU Classic.<\/p>\n
Louisville and Miami will both be in attendance, along with USC, UCLA, Michigan and host SMU.\u00a0Oh, but there’s a catch: each school is only allowed to bring eight swimmers and one diver.<\/p>\n
For some perspective: half of this year’s attending teams had at least that many individual swimmers invited to the NCAA championships: Louisville had eight, Michigan 10 and USC 14.<\/p>\n
Last year at the SMU Classic, Louisville’s\u00a0Mallory Comerford\u00a0<\/strong>got her season off to a quick start with times of 47.89 in the 100 free, 1:43.13 in the 200 free and 4:37.64 in the 500 free. This year, she will have some good competition in the form of USC’s\u00a0Louise Hansson<\/strong> and Michigan’s\u00a0Siobhan Haughey<\/strong>.<\/p>\n As the season progresses, check out whether Comerford gravitates towards the 50 or the 500 free as her third event. In the past, she’s typically\u00a0picked the 500 — she was fourth in the event at the NCAA championships — as she excels more at longer events in short course yards than in long course.<\/p>\n Miami, meanwhile, will compete for the second time this year after finishing third in the All-Florida Invite behind the Florida Gators and the Florida State Seminoles.<\/p>\n The Seminoles have competed two of the past three weeks, at the aforementioned All-Florida Invite and in a home dual meet last weekend against Minnesota. Duke and Virginia Tech, on the other hand, are just starting their seasons in this week’s showdown in Taishoff Aquatic Pavilion.<\/p>\n Florida State has already made clear its key strengths: in the women’s breaststroke events, with NCAA finalist\u00a0Natalie Pierce<\/strong>, and in the men’s sprints, led by\u00a0Chad Mylin\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Kanoa Kaleoaloha<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The Virginia Tech women, who edged out Duke for fifth place at last year’s ACC championships by just 13.5 points, are in a bit of a transition period after losing\u00a0Jessica Hespeler\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Fiona Donnelly<\/strong> to graduation. But versatile\u00a0Klaudia Nazieblo\u00a0<\/strong>returns for her senior season, and\u00a0Reka\u00a0Gyorgy\u00a0<\/strong>is back for her sophomore season after a surprising ACC victory in the 400 IM last year.<\/p>\n The VT men suffered perhaps even bigger losses, with NCAA finalists\u00a0Robert Owen\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Brandon Fiala\u00a0<\/strong>both gone. Watch for\u00a0Norbert Szabo\u00a0<\/strong>and sprinter\u00a0Ian Ho\u00a0<\/strong>to carry the load this year.<\/p>\n The Blue Devils women return three-year NCAA qualifier\u00a0Leah Goldman<\/strong> and sprinter\u00a0Alyssa Marsh<\/strong>, who was a finalist at U.S. Nationals in the 50 fly. Duke’s men, meanwhile, lose their only NCAA scorer from last year, breaststroker\u00a0Peter Kropp<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The Saturday portion of the meet should wrap up around noon — just as the Blue Devil football team kicks off against Florida State. Coincidence?<\/p>\n The\u00a0Todd DeSorbo\u00a0<\/strong>era of Virginia swimming will begin in earnest this weekend as the Cavaliers travel north to Pennsylvania to face the Nittany Lions. Virginia’s women saw a nine-year run of ACC titles come to an end last year — thanks to NC State, a team which DeSorbo coached for at the time — before finishing 12th at the NCAA championships.<\/p>\n But this year’s Virginia team will not have\u00a0Leah Smith<\/strong>. The Olympic gold medalist graduated and moved to the professional ranks, while versatile classmate\u00a0Kaitlyn Jones\u00a0<\/strong>is also gone. So the two best hopes for the UVA women in the early going this year should be\u00a0Jen Marrkand<\/strong>, who was third in the 200 fly at NCAAs last year, and\u00a0Megan Moroney<\/strong>, who had an impressive freshman campaign before missing the entire 2016-17 season.<\/p>\n For the UVA men,\u00a0Zach Fong\u00a0<\/strong>returns after qualifying for NCAAs in the butterfly events last year, and\u00a0Brendan Casey\u00a0<\/strong>returns after swimming the 10k open water race for Team USA at the FINA World Championships.<\/p>\n One week after a pair of upset wins over Louisville, the Fighting Irish should be tested again against the Aggies.\u00a0Abbie Dolan<\/strong>, the Notre Dame sophomore who scored two wins over Comerford last week, is the standout swimmer on the women’s team so far this season, while\u00a0Robby Whitacre<\/strong>,\u00a0Zach Yeadon<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Justin Plaschka\u00a0<\/strong>all picked up multiple event wins against Louisville.<\/p>\n Boston College, fresh off a loss to Bryant, will host the Northeast Catholic Invite Friday (swimming) and Saturday (diving).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week in ACC swimming and diving, eight teams will be in action, mostly in dual or tri-meet settings, but two will be in Dallas for one of the prime<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":264300,"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":[3,6],"tags":[46035,28538,31156,35925,58991,35618,58926,41532,41320,31174,25526,29051,27278,25513,31274,33448,33449,33443,40477,31148,60045,31283,34412,58559],"class_list":["post-280141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-college","tag-abbie-dolan","tag-alyssa-marsh","tag-brandon-fiala","tag-brendan-casey","tag-chad-mylin","tag-fiona-donnelly","tag-ian-ho","tag-jen-marrkand","tag-jessica-hespeler","tag-justin-plaschka","tag-kaitlyn-jones","tag-kanoa-kaleoaloha","tag-leah-goldman","tag-leah-smith","tag-louise-hansson","tag-mallory-comerford","tag-megan-moroney","tag-natalie-pierce","tag-norbert-szabo","tag-peter-kropp","tag-robby-whitacre","tag-robert-owen","tag-siobhan-haughey","tag-zach-yeadon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nFlorida State & Virginia Tech at Duke, 5 p.m. Friday & 10 a.m. Saturday<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Virginia at Penn State, 11 a.m. Saturday<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Texas A&M & Michigan State at Notre Dame, 5 p.m Friday & 11 a.m. Saturday<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Northeast Catholic Invite<\/strong><\/h3>\n