University of North Carolina Athletics
Women's Swimmers Earn Best NCAA Finish In 14 Years
March 17, 2001 | Swimming & Diving
March 17, 2001
EAST MEADOW, N.Y. - North Carolina's women's swimming and diving team merited its best NCAA Championships finish in 14 years Saturday as action in the 2001 NCAA Division I Women's Swimming and Diving Championships wrapped up at the Nassau County Aquatics Center.
Coach Frank Comfort's Tar Heels finished in ninth place with 175 points. That gave the Tar Heels their best NCAA finish since 1987 when Carolina also finished ninth. The last time UNC finished better than ninth was 1984 when the Tar Heels were fifth.
Georgia won its third successive NCAA championship as it edged Stanford by a mere 1.5 points in the team standings. The Bulldogs had 389 points to 387.5 for the Cardinal. Texas was third with 350.5 points, Auburn fourth with 324 points, Arizona fifth with 304 points, Southern California sixth with 255 points, California seventh with 248 points, Florida eighth with 214 points, the Tar Heels ninth with 175 points and Southern Methodist rounded out the Top 10 with 155.5 points.
In action on Saturday night junior Katie Hathaway posted her third Top 8 finish of the meet as she swam to a school record time of 2:11.94 while claiming seventh place in the 200-yard breaststroke. The Matthews, N.C. native had finished fifth Thursday night in the 200-yard individual medley and seventh Friday night in the 100-yard breaststroke.
Carolina's 400-yard freestyle relay also took a championship final finish on the final night as the Tar Heel unit finished eighth in a time of 3:21.44. Carolina had set the school record in the event in the preliminaries Saturday morning at 3:20.36. UNC's evening relay consisted of freshman Jessi Perruquet (50.27), sophomore Christy Watkins (50.71), Hathaway (50.66) and senior Erika Acuff (49.80).
A troika of UNC freshmen earned points for the Tar Heels in consolation finals on Saturday. Perruquet took 14th place in the 100-yard freestyle at 49.98, Becky Acker placed 13th in the 200-yard breaststroke at 2:15.01 and Kelly Weeks was 13th in the 200-yard butterfly at 2:00.45.
Two Tar Heels also competed Saturday night in the timed finals of the 1650-yard freestyle. Senior Lauren Silva was 22nd with a time of 16:39.51 while junior Molly Sullivan was 27th in a time of 16:45.46.
Players Mentioned
