University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Finals
UNC Swimmers & Divers Build Huge 1st Day Leads At Nike Cup
November 22, 2013 | Swimming & Diving
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - The North Carolina men's and women's swimming and diving teams utilized their tremendous depth on day one of the 2013 Janis Hape Dowd Nike Cup to build sizeable leads in both team competitions. The championships, an annual event at Koury Natatorium since 1986, continue Friday and Sunday with preliminaries at 10 a.m. and finals at 6 p.m. each day.
Led by two relay victories and individual event triumphs by Stephanie Peacock and Hannah Lincoln, the Tar Heel women are out fast in the meet heading into the next two days. Carolina leads with 496 points, more the double second place Duke with 213 points. NC State scored 192, East Carolina 184, Navy 73, Old Dominion 71 and Georgia Southern 11 on the first day of competition.
UNC's men won only one individual event on the day but its numbers in championship finals of events proved more than adequate to almost double up second-place NC State in the team scoring race. Carolina has 406 points followed by NC State with 227, Navy with 196, East Carolina with 152, Duke with 139 and Old Dominion with 89. It was redshirt sophomore Dominick Glavich who picked up UNC's only win of the day, seizing a come-from-behind victory in the 200-yard individual medley but he had plenty of help from his teammates.
"We love hosting this meet, the Janis Hape Dowd Nike Cup, and it was great to have Janis here watching the events tonight," said UNC head coach Rich DeSelm. "We swam well and we dove well. Altogether, we had a very good day.
Carolina started off the evening with a tight victory in the 200-yard freestyle relay as the unit of Sarah Hitchens, Hannah Lincoln, Ally Hardesty and Lauren Earp touching first in 1:30.52, a half-second ahead of the top NC State relay team. It was role reversal for the two rival schools in the men's 200-yard freestyle relay as the NC State four-man unit took top honors in 1:18.97, edging the Carolina team of Logan Heck, Nic Graesser, Sam Lewis and J.T. Stilley by .37 of a second.
Next up was the 500-yard freestyle where UNC swimmers finished 1-2-3-4-5, led by Stephanie Peacock's NCAA "A" qualifying time of 4:36.40. That time was just seven-tenths of a second off her own Nike Cup record. Emma Nunn placed second in the event after going a career best time in the preliminaries (4:42.79) to earn the top seed going into the finals. Danielle Siverling, Meredith Hoover and Annie Harrison rounded out the top five.
"Stephanie Peacock put together a very nice 500 freestyle. I think it was 4:36 low so that will be very competitive (nationally) after the next week or two of swimming," said DeSelm. "She feels good about it and we also had Emma Nunn doing a career lifetime best and several other swimmers going fast. There are really just too many names to mention."
Thomas Duvall of Navy claimed top honors in the 500-yard freestyle on the men's side with a time of 4:22.51. Carolina's J.T. Stilley garnered the runner-up spot in 4:23.45 while Carolina's Brad Dillon and Josh Beals came in fourth and fifth.
Christine Wixted of Duke was the winner of the women's 200-yard individual medley as she clocked a time of 1:58.60. UNC swimmers placed second through sixth in the event with transfer Hannah Runyon-Hass claiming runner-up status with a time of 2:00.56.
North Carolina's Dominick Glavich captured the men's 200-yard individual medley in a time of 1:48.20, catching East Carolina's Rokas Cepulis in the final five yards of the race to win by .06 of a second. Tar Heels Eugene Tee, Patrick Myers and Alex Gianino finished 3-4-5.
Sophomore Hannah Lincoln was at the top of the podium in the women's 50-yard freestyle as she touched in 22.86 seconds, just .04 of a second ahead of Lauren Poli of NC State. In the men's 50-yard freestyle Old Dominion's Sidni Hoxha took first place with a Nike Cup record of 19.44 seconds, breaking Tennessee's Renato Gueraldi's mark which had stood for 11 years.
Carolina's 400-yard medley relay teams for women finished 1-2 in the event. The "A" relay of Carly Smith, Katie Rechsteiner, Sarah Koucheki and Ally Hardesty touched first in 3:38.06. There was a pitched battle for first place in the men's 400-yard medley relay where just .44 of a second separated first place NC State and second place Carolina.
Old Dominion and Duke each won a diving event on Thursday. ODU's Rachel Eckert took first place in the women's one-meter diving with 294.35 points while Nick McCrory of the Blue Devils took first place in men's three-meter with 477.65. Tar Heel divers were 2-3 in both events with Emily Schmidt and Erin Purdy doing so in the women's one-meter and Jack Nyquist and Ozzie Moyer notching the 2-3 spots in the men's three-meter competition.
"Our relays are ahead of last year and we just had a team meeting and we asked anyone who had a career lifetime best or a career best diving score stand up and we had a lot of people stand up, a good dozen or more having accomplished that here today," said coach DeSelm at the conclusion of the evening. "The team is very enthusiastic about today's results and we are eager to teach them about multiple day swimming. It takes a lot of juice to do this three days in a row, prelims and finals. This is a great setting to set that up for February and March."
