University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
ACC Women's Finals
Morrissy, Santoro Take Bronze Finishes At ACC Meet
February 17, 2005 | Swimming & Diving
Feb. 17, 2005
ATLANTA, GA. - North Carolina stands in third place after the second day of the 2005 Atlantic Coast Conference Women's Swimming & Diving Championships at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center. The Tar Heels had a pair of competitors earn All-Atlantic Coast Conference honors Thursday with third-place finishes as freshman Kelsey Morrissy placed third in the 50-yard freestyle and junior gia Santoro was third in one-meter diving.
Maryland, seeking its first ever ACC title leads after the second day of competition with 238 points. Two-time defending champion Virginia is second with 217. The Tar Heels are third with 156 but they were hurt in the team points race when Carolina's 200-yard freestyle relay was disqualified on Thursday night.
Florida State is in fourth place with 140 points, Virginia Tech is fifth with 125.5 points, Clemson is sixth with 110 points and Georgia Tech seventh with 100.5 points. Miami and NC State are tied for eighth with 90 points and Duke is 10th with 89 points.
Morrissy clocked a time of 23.27 seconds to finish third in the 50-yard freestyle. The freshman from Horsham, Pa. was the only Tar Heel to make the final in the event but she made the most of it, moving up from an eighth-place preliminary finish to third in the final. Morrissy's time also enabled her to move into the No. 9 spot on the Tar Heel depth chart in the 50-yard freestyle. Mason Walsh became the first Virginia Tech swimmer to capture an ACC title, when she placed first in the 50-yard freestyle with an NCAA A-standard time of 22.65. Florida State's Carrie Ellis placed second with a mark of 23.10.
Miami's Jenna Dreyer became the Hurricanes' first ACC champion, when she took top honors on the one-meter diving board. The freshman set a new ACC Championship record with a score of 320.75. Florida State's Courtney McClow placed second with a mark of 313.10, while North Carolina's gia Santoro registered a third-place finish with her score of 279.70.
Carolina sophomore Lauren Karatanevski took 11th place in the event with a score of 242.10 points and junior Kate Lewis was the 12th place finisher with a score of 225.50.
Junior Amanda Smith was Carolina's top finisher in the 500-yard freestyle, leading a pair of Tar Heels in the Top 12 of the event. Smith finished seventh with a time of 4:52.95. In the preliminaries of the event, Smith had qualified for the championship final by going 4:50.71, taking six seconds off her previous career best time in the event and moving her to No. 10 on the all-time Tar Heel depth chart. Sophomore Erin Cutrell was the Tar Heels' other point scorer in the 500-yard freestyle as she recorded a 12th-place finish. Cutrell pulled off the unlikely feat of clocking the exact same time in the prelims and the finals Thursday -- 4:54.07. Clemson junior Kim Routh won the ACC title in the event with a time of 4:44.47, edging Maryland senior Chrissy Miller by seven one-hundredths of a second to capture the championship.
North Carolina swimmers placed seventh through ninth in the 200-yard individual medley with freshman Lindsey Marck taking seventh, junior Lizzy Bruce eighth and senior Virginia Hanson ninth. Marck's time was 2:04.40 and Bruce swam a 2:05.47. Hanson won the consolation heat in 2:04.05.
Maryland's Marina Mulyayeva placed first in the 200-yard individual medley with a mark of 2:00.78. Duke's Katie Ness recorded a 2:02.07 second-place finish, while Virginia's Anna Steenrod finished third with a time of 2:02.39.
Maryland's Megan Knepper, Cynthia Weir, Amber Walter and Mulyayeva earned first-place honors in the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:31.84. The Tar Heel relay was disqualified. The UNC relay clocked a 1:32.74 before its disqualificaton. The relay consisted of freshman Kelsey Morrissy, sophomore Meagan Eickman, junior Leila Martin and senior Virginia Hanson.
The schedule of events for Friday, February 18, consists of the 400-yard individual medley, 100-yard butterfly, 200-yard freestyle, 100-yard breaststroke, 100-yard backstroke, three-meter diving and the 400-yard medley relay.
Players Mentioned
