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The Virginia women took a big step toward locking up their 7th-straight ACC Championship on Saturday morning by handling the races they were expected to handle.
That started early with an emphatic five swimmers into the A-final of the women’s 200 backstroke. That includes the top seeded Courtney Bartholomew, who was a 1:52.65 to sit well out in front of UNC’s Annie Harrison (1:54.59) for the number-one seed.
Virginia’s Caroline Kenney (1:54.60) and Ellen Williamson (1:54.88) took the 3rd-and-4th seeds in that race, with NC State’s Hannah Freyman topping out the top 5.
In the women’s 100 free, Florida State’s Tiffany Oliver set herself up for a second-straight ACC sweep of the women’s sprint freestyles. She won the 50 free already on Thursday, and now on Friday she takes the top seed into the women’s 100 free final with a 48.50 out of prelims.
That is also big for the Seminoles as a team, as they’re trying to hold on to the third-place position, with Oliver and her teammate Kaitlyn Dressel (49.18) are both top four seeds.
The swimmers closest to Oliver in prelims was Virginia’s Emily Lloyd, who followed her impressive medley relay anchor from Friday with a lifetime best of 48.63 in the 100 free in prelims. UNC’s Lauren Earp was a 49.06 for the 3rd seed.
A tie for the 5th seed went to UNC’s Hannah Lincoln, whose 50’s have looked very good at this meet, and NC State’s Lotta Nevalainen: both of whom were 49.31’s. A tie again for 7th rounds out the A final, with Danielle Siverling (49.33) and Natalie Labonge (49.33) tying for 7th.
In the 200 breaststroke, it was another Virginia top seed, with freshman Laura Simon swimming a 2:08.65 to win her heat. Also winning her heat, and making the difference between seed times trivial, was Notre Dame’s Emma Reaney in 2:08.71,
Virginia Tech’s Weronika Paluszek is the 3rd seed in 2:09.04, and Duke’s Christine Wixted is the 4th seed in 2:10.20. Although the times drop off pretty significantly after that point, there’s some key placings in terms of who finaled where: Florida State got one into the A final with a 2:12.92 from Morgan Stephenson; and Duke got a second into the A final with Emily Barber touching in 2:13.64. Those two swims will have a big impact on the battle for 3rd place (Florida State) and 7th place (Duke) that are also going on.
Rounding out the prelims was a good set of swims from North Carolina in their deepest event: the 200 fly. Meredith Hoover was a 1:55.82 (she’s been a bit faster this season), and Cari Blalock was a 1:56.40 (that’s her season best by three seconds) for the top two seeds, and UNC returned the earlier favor with four of their own in the A final (Emma Nunn was a 1:58.4 for 7th, and Sarah Koucheki was a 1:58.7 for 8th).
Florida State got another big swim as they look better-and-better for that 3rd-place position, with freshman Chelsea Britt taking the 3rd seed in 1:56.41; she was followed by a pair from Virginia (Shaun Casey 1:57.03, Alison Haulsee 1:57.40), and Notre Dame’s Bridget Casey also made the A-final in 1:58.27.
All-in-all, the top teams all ‘handled their business’ in prelims, which means that current margins, with diving thrown in, shouldn’t leave a whole lot of shakeups in team standings on Saturday night.