University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
ACC Men's Championships Finals
Carolina Men's Swimmers Set Two School Records On First Night Of ACCs
February 25, 2009 | Swimming & Diving
Feb. 25, 2009
COLLEGE PARK, MD.-- The University of North Carolina men's swimming and diving team shattered two school records Wednesday night and currently stands in fourth place after the opening day of the 2009 Atlantic Coast Conference Men's Swimming and Diving Championships at the Eppley Recreation Center Natatorium on the University of Maryland campus. Tar Heel swimmers eclipsed school records in both the 200-yard medley and 800-yard freestyle relays, the latter of which had stood for 16 years.
"It was great that we set two school records but we were looking to be better than fourth in both relays," said Tar Heel head coach Rich DeSelm. "We had two good races but we left feeling a little unsatisfied. We have a very important morning tomorrow and need to swim to our capabilities."
The 200-yard medley relay of sophomore Tommy Wyher, senior Brad Mitchell, sophomore Tyler Smith and freshman Steve Cebertowicz had an NCAA "B" qualifying time and a school record clocking of 1:27.01 to beat the record set by the Tar Heels at last year's ACC Championships. Wyher led off in a blazing fast 21.70, followed by Mitchell's 24.53 breaststroke leg, Smith's 21.15 butterfly leg and Cebertowicz's 19.63 freestyle split. The record set last year was 1:27.97 and the unit included Josh Hafkin (22.42), Mitchell (24.86), Wyher (20.94) and Robby Swendiman (19.75).
"We were better than we were a year ago in the 200 medley relay. Tommy Wyher had a great leadoff leg and put us in first place," said DeSelm. "We also improved our seed time as much as any other team in the field. But we did make a couple of mistakes and in a relay that short and quick you can't afford that. We were only a second out of first though and we can improve and be better next year in the event."
The 800-yard freestyle relay clocked an NCAA "B" time of 6:25.38 to finish fourth. Freshman Evan Reed led off in 1:36.81, well below his previous career best of 1:38.34. Junior Hank Browning split 1:36.80, sophomore Tyler Harris went 1:37.03 and sophomore Chip Peterson anchored in 1:34.74. The old Tar Heel record was set in 1993 at 6:26.71. That relay included David Monasterio (1:37.02), James Hamrick (1:36.22), Daniel Summerlin (1:37.66) and Yann deFabrique (1:35.81).
"You always like to see records broken. I coached the guys who had the record that went down tonight and that was a very memorable swim for them at the 1993 NCAAs," said DeSelm. "They were great guys to coach and it is hard to see their name go off the record board but it's exciting to get a new record.
"Freshman Evan Reed might have been a bit anxious but he put up a best time by two seconds. The rest of the relay legs had to play catch up and we were running fifth for a while. We just barely ran out of room at the end trying to get second place. Chip Peterson had a fast split and did a good job of fighting his way back amongst the top finishers."
At the end of the first day the standings look like this: Virginia 74, Georgia Tech 72, Florida State 66, North Carolina 60, Virginia Tech 54, Maryland 50, NC State 50, Clemson 42, Duke 40 and Boston College 28.
Players Mentioned
