University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Finals
Lewis & Nyquist Earn All-America Honors For UNC
March 29, 2014 | Swimming & Diving
The Tar Heels are in 34th place in the team standings after the second day of competition with seven team points.
Lewis placed 11th in the 100-yard butterfly and Nyquist took 16th place in three-meter diving on the second day of competition. Both earned honorable mention All-America honors in the process. Nyquist is UNC's first All-America in diving since David MacDonald earned honorable mention honors in three-meter diving in 2012. Lewis is the first Tar Heel to earn All-America honors in the 100 fly since Tommy Wyher was a first-team honoree in 2010.
Lewis swam identical times in both the preliminaries and the consolation final in the 100-yard butterfly at 45.99 seconds. He qualified ninth in the event in the prelims and then took 11th place overall and third in the consolation final in the evening session. Lewis' previous career best in the event was a 46.42 in his freshman year and he joins Tommy Wyher as the only two Tar Heels to ever break 46 seconds in the event. Wyher is the school record holder at 45.57, set in 2010.
"I am very proud of Sam Lewis improving upon his conference time in prelims and just missing out on the finals," said UNC head coach Rich DeSelm. "He repeated his prelim time exactly this evening and finished 11th overall. Sam's skills have greatly improved - his start, his underwaters and his breakouts are all progressing rapidly and that showed in his performance today."
Nyquist, a freshman diver from Alpharetta, Ga., finished off an excellent first NCAA meet of his career with his 16th place finish in the three-meter event. He was the 12th highest qualifier in the prelims when he scored 372.55 points. Nyquist was also excellent in the one-meter event on Thursday when he placed 17th (just one spot short of a scoring position) with 331.00 points.
"Our other scorer was freshman Jack Nyquist. In the qualifying rounds, Jack had a beautiful first dive but his second dive was off and it forced him to fight his way back over the next four rounds if he was going to advance," said DeSelm. "On his last dive of the prelims, he scored more than 73 points to earn a spot in the B final. In the consolation round, he ended up 16th overall but he was one of only a few freshmen scoring in the event today. Coming to this meet and competing the way he did allowed Jack to gain valuable experience that will serve him well in the near future.
Tar Heels were in action in several other events on Friday. The 200-yard medley relay finished 20th in a time of 1:26.55. That relay team included Nic Graesser (21.97), Kurt Wohlrab (24.38), Sam Lewis (20.31) and Logan Heck (19.95). Patrick Myers (34th) and Alex Gianino (37th) competed in the 400-yard individual medley and Ben Colley was 34th in the 100-yard butterfly.
Carolina's 800-yard freestyle relay team finished with a time of 6:26.60. That relay included Brad Dillon (1:36.09), Ben Colley (1:36.90), Nic Graesser (1:36.50) and Alex Gianino (1:37.11). The Tar Heels' 800 free relay finished in 21st place.
Players Mentioned
