North Carolina
ACC Women's Championships Finals
Carolina Finishes Second At ACC Championships
February 23, 2008 | Swimming & Diving
Feb. 23, 2008
ATLANTA, GA. - Whitney Sprague won her second straight championship in the 1650-yard freestyle, the 400-yard freestyle relay team established a school record and the University of North Carolina women's swimming and diving team finished second at the 2008 Atlantic Coast Conference Women's Swimming and Diving Championships Saturday at the Georgia Tech Aquatics Center.
Carolina has now finished either first or second in the ACC Championships in 28 of 30 years in the meet's existence. That includes 16 championships and 12 runnerup finishes. UNC was third in the other two seasons.
Sprague, a junior from Bronxville, N.Y., captured her second championship of this year's meet with a time of 16:02.76, beating the remainder of the field by eight seconds. After winning the 500-yard freestyle on Thursday night, Sprague has now won both the 500 and the 1650 in back-to-back ACC meets.
The Tar Heels' 400-yard freestyle relay team finished seond in 3:18.82, setting a school record in the process. Kelsey Morrissy led off the relay with a 49.37 split, giving her a career best time in the 100-yard freestyle and bestowing her with an automatic NCAA Qualifying Time for next month's NCAA Championships. Morrissy now trails only Richelle Fox and Jessi Perruquet on the all-time list of performers at UNC in the 100 free.
The remainder of the school record setting relay included Rebecca Kane (49.95), Eliza Butts (49.70) and Megan Steeves (49.80). A year ago the school record was set by Butts, Steeves, Aubrette Biegel and Morrissy at 3:19.44.
In other swims in the 1650 freestyle, freshman Katura Harvey finished fifth in a career best time of 16:30.57 while junior Aubrette Biegel swam a career best 16:49.60 to place 10th and Lindsay McIlvain took 12th place with a time of 16:53.53. Freshman Ashley Miler was 20th in 17:04.13 while freshman Allison Barnes swam a 17:00.20 as an exhibition swimmer.
Sophomore Ashley Howard captured fourth place in the 200-yard backstroke at 1:58.57. The other Tar Heels in the finals were sophomore Barbara Thomas who was 16th in 2:04.29 and senior Taylor McFarlane who took the "C" final to finish 17th overall at 2:01.33.
Carolina's best overall event of the night was the 100-yard freestyle wherthe Tar Heels placed four swimmers in the Top 10. Senior Kelsey Morrissy's final individual swim of her career was a fine one as she took second-place honors with a time of 49.74. Freshman Rebecca Kane was sixth in a career best 50.27 and sophomore Megan Steeves was seventh in 50.40. Sophomore Eliza Butts finished 10th overall with a time of 50.45.
Sophomore Alison Clemens was a championship finalist in the 200-yard breaststroke with the Staten Island, N.Y., native finishing fourth in 2:15.56. Freshman Katie Marsh won the "C" final with a time of 2:22.81, finishing 17th overall.
Carolina's sole entry in the 200-yard butterfly was senior Lindsey Marck. She turned in a fine performance, placing fourth in the event with a time of 2:00.32.
Junior Erica Schiffler finished eighth in 10-meter platform diving with a score of 215.95 points after scoring 260.85 points in the preliminaries. Senior Laura Filip finished 12th in platform diving with a score of 160.15 and senior Erika Matheis was 14th with a score of 133.50.
Virginia won the ACC championship with 800 team points, followed by North Carolina with 572, Florida State with 544.5, Virginia Tech with 362, Clemson with 350, Duke with 267, Georgia Tech with 261, NC State with 228, Maryland with 223.5, Miami with 182 and Boston College with 52.
Players Mentioned
