2020 ACC Men’s Championships: Day 1 Finals Live Recap – Relays

2020 ACC MEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• When: Wednesday, February 26th to Saturday, February 29th Prelims 10:00 am | Finals 6:00 pm (1650 prelims Saturday at 4:00 pm)
• Where: Greensboro Aquatic Center, Greensboro, North Carolina (Eastern Time Zone)
• Defending Champion: North Carolina State University (NC State) (29x, 5th-straight) (results)
• Streaming: ACC Network
  • Day 2 Finals
  • Day 3 Finals
  • Day 4 Finals
• Championship Central: Here
• Detailed Timeline: Here
• Psych Sheets: Here
• Live Results

The swimming portion of the 2020 Atlantic Coast Conference men’s swimming and diving championships kicks off tonight with just two events, the 200 medley relay and the 800 free relay. As a reminder, so here’s what the scores look like before the swimming gets underway.

Men’s Scores After Diving Completed

1. Miami – 197
2. Florida State – 127
3. North Carolina – 124
4. NC State – 123
5. Virginia – 116
6. Louisville – 104
7. Duke – 102
8. Virginia Tech – 85
9. Georgia Tech – 46
10. Notre Dame – 38
11. Pitt – 24

Keep in mind that live results usually only add in the diving scores as each event would occur in sequence. In other words, platform diving scores may not be added into the “official” score until the final day. But we’ll try to keep you posted on the actual scores. With six teams earning between 102 and 127 diving points, it doesn’t look like diving should have a huge impact on most of the overall finishes.

200 Medley Relay – Timed Finals

• ACC championship record – 1:22.37, NC State (2019)
• ACC record – 1:22.37, NC State (2019)
• 2019 champion – NC State (1:22.37)

1. NC State – 1:24.13
2. Florida State – 1:24.51
3. Georgia Tech – 1:24.95

We’re not about mincing words here, and this was not a particularly fast event, as only three teams hit this year’s NCAA ‘B’ cut. NC State won with a 1:24.13, almost two seconds slower than their winning time of 1:22.37 from last year. Coleman Stewart led off in 20.83, fairly in line with his 20.75 leadoff last year, Rafal Kusto then split 24.30 on breast, Luke Sobolewski put up a 20.38 fly split, then Nyls Korstanje brought it home in 18.62. NC State has now won this event six of the last seven years, despite only Stewart and Korstanje returning from last year’s team, and Korstanje switching to free after splitting 19.81 on the fly leg last year.

Florida State took 2nd. Senior Griffin Alaniz led off in 21.13 to put FSU in 3rd off the bat, then they got a pair of strong legs in the middle of the race from Izaak Bastian (23.93) and Max McCusker (20.24) before Jakub Ksiazek anchored in 19.21 to touch in 1:24.51. While that’s nearly a second slower than their time from last year, only Bastian returns from their 2019 relay, and everyone other than Alaniz are sophomores.

The next four teams all finished between 1:24.95 and 1:25.03, with three of those four teams racing each other in the second heat. Georgia Tech came out on top, thanks large to Caio Pumputis‘s 23.77 breast split and a 19.22 anchor by Corben Miles.

UVA took 4th in 1:24.98, a tantalizing 0.01s off the NCAA ‘B’ cut, with Keefer Barnum splitting 23.63 on breast (on an as-close-as-you can 0.00s reaction time) and freshman August Lamb anchoring in 19.08. Backstroker Joe Clark split 21.75 after going 21.25 last year. On the positive side for the Cavaliers, that’s a solid split from Lamb and fellow freshman Max Edwards (20.52), promising signs for a freshman class that we ranked 3rd in the nation (NC State’s was 2nd).

Pitt and Virginia Tech tied for 5th in 1:25.03. Pitt got a 20.03 fly leg by speedster Blaise Vera. Senior Luke Smutny led off in 21.63, the fastest 50 back time in Pitt history. Virginia Tech won thad he first heat with a time of 1:25.03 with a strong back half, as Blake Manoff split 20.21 on the fly leg and Tommy Hallock anchored in 18.49.

Although in different heats, Notre Dame finished just ahead of UNC for 7th, 1:25.84 to 1:25.94. Duke (1:26.34) and Boston College (1:30.09) finished 9th and 10th.

Louisville, the 2018 champion in this event and last year’s runner-up, actually touched first by a wide margin, but was disqualified for an early takeoff by the anchor. Mitchell Whyte led off in 20.82, Evgenii Somov split 23.26 on breast, and Nick Albiero went 19.84 on the fly leg. All of those times were the fastest in the field. Mihalis Deliyiannis split 18.48 on the anchor leg, but drew the disqualification with an -0.08s reaction time. Even adding a few tenths onto that for a safe start would’ve given Louisville a time well under 1:23 and a very comfortable win. That DQ could cost Louisville big time in what should be a race for 2nd place against UVA.

Like we said, this race was much slower than last year. NC State was the only team under the ‘A’ standard, whereas last year four teams were under that cut, and another three teams finished under the ‘B’ cut.

800 Free Relay – Timed Finals

• ACC championship record – 6:09.82, NC State (2017)
• ACC record – 6:05.31, NC State (2018)
• 2019 champion – Louisville (6:11.84)

1. Louisville – 6:12.02
2. NC State – 6:14.98
3. Florida State – 6:15.94

Louisville came back from the disqualification to win this event for the second year in a row, touching first by nearly three seconds with a time of 6:12.02. The Cardinals were a model of consistency, with all four men splitting between 1:32.4 and 1:33.4, and all relation exchanges between 0.10s and 0.19s. Nick Albiero led off with a 1:32.45 to put them in the lead from the get-go. Colton Paulson split 1:32.87 on the 2nd leg, and Andrej Barna and Sam Steele brought it home in 1:33.29 and 1:33.41, respectively.

NC State took 2nd in 6:14.98. Eric Knowles led off in 1:34.01, followed by Coleman Stewart (1:33.06), Hunter Tapp (1:33.06), then Noah Hensley (1:33.58). Hensley was the only returner from last year’s relay, where he split 1:34.00 and NC State finished 4th in 6:16.48.

Florida State jumped up two spots from last year’s rankings to take 3rd in 6:15.94. Freshman Peter Varjasi led off in 1:32.76 to put the Seminoles in 2nd early on. Jakub Ksiazek split 1:35.71, almost two seconds off his 1:33.83 anchor from last year, then another freshman, Mohamed Ghaffari went 1:33.48 on the 3rd leg, and Vladimir Stefanik anchored in 1:33.99. FSU’s time tonight was over two seconds faster than last year’s 5th place time of 6:18.35.

This was a fairly tight field, with less than a second separating 3rd place from 6th. Virginia Tech used a strong front half by Blake Manoff (1:33.69 leadoff) and Lane Stone (1:33.36) to take 4th in 6:16.36. UVA got three 1:34s, plus a 1:33.79 split by Sam Schilling, taking 4th in 6:16.68.  Notre Dame took 6th in 6:16.86, with anchor Zach Yeadon putting up the fastest split in the field with a 1:32.53. All of the top six teams were under the NCAA ‘A’ cut.

Scores After Day 1

Note: While diving competed last week, live results normally will not add each diving events’ points into the overall score until it “occurs” in order of events. E.g., the platform diving points will not roll up until the final day. Our scores throughout the week will include each team’s total diving points already figured in.

1. NC State – 243
2. Florida State – 237
3. Virginia – 218
4. North Carolina – 214
5. Miami (diving only) – 197
6. Virginia Tech – 186
7. Duke – 182
8. Louisville – 168
9. Georgia Tech – 134
10. Notre Dame – 132
11. Pitt – 117
12. Boston College – 66