The Virginia women chanted "Hoo's House? Our House!" throughout the ACC swimming championships at the AFC Saturday night and made that mantra a reality after capturing the title with 675 points to defend their conference championship from last year. For the second year in row, the rival Carolina came in second place with 623.50 points, while Florida State rounded out the top three with 611 points.
The No. 19 Virginia women came into Saturday night's meet with a 17-point cushion over the Seminoles, despite having the fourth highest national ranking in the conference. The Cavaliers never relinquished their lead and cruised to a 51.5 point victory.
The 200-yard backstroke and 1650-yard freestyle were key events that helped solidify a Virginia victory. The Cavalier sophomore trio of Brielle White, Corey Berg and Katie Gordon swept the 200 backstroke.
"I think that probably surprised a lot of people," Virginia coach Mark Bernardino said of the event. "But I also think that that's the kind of sweep that showed passion. The way Corey and Katie Gordon came from behind and found a way to get their hands on the wall 2nd and 3rd in a tight race. Both of them broke away in the latter stages of the race ... That showed the heart and the determination that we have and what we'll do to win."
White set her fourth ACC record of the meet in that event while also recording a pool and meet record with an NCAA automatic qualifying time of 1:57.13. She also won the 100 backstroke Friday night and set her first ACC record while swimming the 100 backstroke in prelims that morning. She then broke her own record with her first-place finish that evening and broke it again later in Friday night's meet with a time of 53:12 while swimming the first leg of the 400-yard medley relay.
"I knew that if I went my best time, I could get those records," White said. "I don't look at the records, I just say 'go my best time' and then the rest will take care of itself. You should never look at a certain time. You just race the clock and the rest takes care of itself."
The Cavaliers again picked up a good number of points in the distance events, garnering 76 from the 1650 freestyle. Freshman Kimi Kelly led the way, touching first with a NCAA automatic qualifying time of 16:04.33. Following close behind was Rachael Burke with another automatic NCAA qualifying time of 16:06.46. Juniors Kate McWilliams and Kate Wrenshall finished in the top eight as well, at spots five and seven, respectively.
Senior captain Amy Baly won her first event at the ACC championships when she swam to victory in the 400-yard individual medley Friday night. Baly came into the event seeded 3rd from preliminaries and cut that time down three seconds to finish with a NCAA consideration time of 4:16.20.
"When we had our pre-team meeting, we had three girls in the finals [of that event] and I made probably a coach's faux pas by saying 'nothing would make me happier than to see Amy Baly win this race,' knowing that we have other swimmers," Bernardino said. "And I said 'If any of you want to tie, that's great, we can have a tie, but I want Amy to win.' She needed an ACC championship. She's been an All-American. She's been first-team ACC in that event for three straight years as the runner-up and I think to step on the podium was really, really special for Amy. She's the spiritual leader of the team and everybody loves her."
Florida State, which came in third, took home both MVP awards, for best diver and best swimmer. Senior Emma Dutton was part of all four of the Seminoles' winning relays and placed first in all three of her individual events to capture the Swimmer MVP. Junior diver Tiffany Manning won the ACC 2004 Diving MVP after she won both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving events.
But in the end it was a day to celebrate for the Cavaliers. They finished the meet with the entire team wearing t-shirts displaying "Hoo's Ring? Our Ring" and concluded with the swimming version of dousing the head coach with water by pulling their entire coaching staff into the water with them to celebrate.
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