Duke Sweeps South Carolina at Columbia

The South Carolina Gamecocks hosted the men and women of Duke University today, falling to the Blue Devils in both match-ups.  The Duke women landed eight individual event wins and took the top two positions for both relays to claim dominance with a score of 187-113.  In the men’s meet, the Gamecocks landed eight individual wins of their own, but it was not enough to hold back Duke with two full four position sweeps of individual events and powerful relays stealing the win on the last event, 154-146.

Live results are at this link.

The Blue Devil women made their intentions clear right out of the gates as they managed to finish their A and B 200 medley relay squads ahead of the South Carolina A relay.  Mickayla Hinkle, Leah Goldman, Isabella Paez and Maddie Hess combined for the win at 1:41.47.

Hinkle and Hess went on to contribute two wins each in individual events for Duke.  Hinkle won both backstroke events, turning in 55.69 for the 100 and 2:01.20 for the 200.  Hess won the 200 free in 1:51.18 and the 100 fly in 54.73, leading a 1-3 Blue Devil sweep of the fly event.

Duke’s women also had a 1-4 sweep of the 200 fly, led by Leah Goldman at 2:01.17.  Other event winners for the Blue Devils were Ashleigh Shanley in the 100 breast (1:03.51,) Maddie Rusch in the 50 free (23.53,) Chelsea Ye in the 100 free (52.06,) and Verity Abel in the 500 free (4:55.54.)

South Carolina also had two double event winners.  Julia Vincent captured the top points for both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving events with scores of 323.70 and 319.80 respectively.  Kersten Dirrane won the 200 breast in 2:17.25 and the 200 IM in 2:05.84.  Emma Barksdale also picked up top points for the Gamecocks with her 1000 freestyle win at 9:51.14.

The Duke squad of Rusch, Hess, Ye and Goldman combined for 3:25.16 to lead the 1-2 sweep of the 400 free relay to close the meet for the women.

The men’s meet was a much closer contest, with the Gamecocks and the Blue Devils trading the lead on each of the last five events.  Duke’s Kazumu Takabayashi, Peter Kropp, David Armstrong and James Peek started the meet with a convincing win for the 200 medley relay with 1:27.77.  South Carolina’s A relay barely held back the Duke B, touching just .05 ahead at 1:30.60.

South Carolina won twice as many individual events as Duke, led by a triple from Nils Wich-Glasen.  He finished first in the 200 IM (1:49.93,) 200 breast (1:58.88,) and 100 breast (54.74.)  His 100 breast held back hard-charging Blue Devil Michael Seaberg who touched just behind him at 54.81. The Gamecocks also had a double win from Jordan Gotro who topped the 1-meter (331.73) and 3-meter (380.33) diving events.  Other event winners for South Carolina were Cody Bekemeyer in the 1000 free (9:10.81,) Kevin Leithold in the 200 free (1:40.24,) Fynn Minuth in the 200 fly (1:49.92,) and Akaram Mahmoud in the 500 free (4:30.09.)

Duke’s four individual event wins were from two separate double winners.  James Peek took both sprint freestyle events for the Blue Devils.  His 44.82 for the 100 free held back SC’s Kevin Leithold at 44.96, and his 20.14 for the 50 free was the spearpoint of a dominating 1-4 sweep of the event.  Kazumu Takabayashi took top honors in the 100 back with 49.05, and also led a 1-4 Duke domination of the 100 fly with his 49.14.  

After losing the team score lead by five points following the 200 IM, Duke rallied to leave no doubt that the meet belonged to them.  They finished first and second in the 400 free relay, with the A squad of Armstrong, Dylan Payne, Seaberg and Peek leading the way at 2:59.91 for the hard-earned win of the event and the meet.