Swimming & Diving Picks Up Dominating Win Over Gamecocks

Sunday, January 24

Chapel Hill

1 PM

North Carolina

South Carolina

Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati

January 24, 2021 | Swimming & Diving

Final Results

By: Mark Kimmel

CHAPEL HILL - North Carolina faced off against the South Carolina Gamecocks Sunday afternoon at Koury Natatorium in their second dual meet of the weekend. The Tar Heels, who barely fell to the Virginia Cavaliers on Friday, claimed a victory over the Gamecocks, with scores of 184-111 for the women and 212-81 for the men.

"I'm really proud of our team today," said Carolina's head coach, Mark Gangloff. "We showed up after having a really tough meet on Friday night, and to show up and do what we did—we won all but one event on both the men's and women's sides today—against a team like South Carolina is pretty special."

The women's 400-yard medley relay of Sophie Lindner, Lilly Higgs, Ellie VanNote and Grace Countie set a competitive tone for the meet, winning the first event by over four seconds.

That performance was followed by numerous first-place finishes, including Addison Smith in the 500- and 1000-yard freestyle (4:52.61, 10:07.35), Lindner in the 200-yard freestyle (1:47.07), Countie in the 100- and 200-yard backstroke (52.33, 1:56.06), Caroline Cooper in the 200-yard butterfly (2:00.11), Heidi Lowe in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle (22.80, 49.42), Higgs in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:14.89), and Ellie VanNote in the 100-yard butterfly (53.94).

Many of these top finishes for Carolina were personal records.

Even with the women's strong performance, the Tar Heel men were not overshadowed. The team of Tucker Burhans, Valdas Abaliksta, Boyd Poelke and Tomas Sungaila won the 400-yard medley relay with UNC's fastest time of the season (3:09.85). The men swept the podium, taking first through third in the 200-yard freestyle (Sungaila (1:36.40), Dimitrios Dimitriou (1:36.87), Samuel Player (1:38.99)), the 100-yard backstroke (Burhans (47.68), Chris Thames (48.27), Alex Mays (48.94), the 100-yard freestyle (Sungaila (44.04), Daniel Koenigsperger (44.08), Poelke (44.61) and 200-yard backstroke (Thames (1:45.60), Noah Rutberg (1:46.64), Mays (1:47.03).

Other first-place finishes for the men included Abaliksta in the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke (53.91, 1:57.34), Santos Villalon in the 100- and 200-yard butterfly (47.43, 1:46.44) and Eli Coan in the 50-yard freestyle (20.01). Like the women's team, the men also set multiple personal records against the Gamecocks.

The divers pulled their weight in the UNC victory, with Aranza Vazquez-Montano and Emily Grund placing first and second for the women in both the 1-meter (344.03, 308.70) and 3-meter (351.68, 348.53) events. Vazquez-Montano's 1-meter performance set a new program record for the Tar Heels, beating the previous team record of 337.50 that Vazquez-Montano set Friday night against Virginia.

For the men, Anton Down-Jenkins, Alex Hart and Fabian Stepinski placed first, second and third, respectively, in both the 1-meter (364.05, 350.78, 343.95) and 3-meter (446.78, 386.85, 358.73) events.

UNC returns to Koury Natatorium Friday afternoon to host long-time rivals, the Duke Blue Devils on Senior Day. The meet is set to begin at 4 p.m. ET and will be available on ACC Network Extra with results live on the Meet Mobile App.