The Virginia men's and women's swimming and diving teams completed their winning weekend yesterday with 132-100 and 136-99 victories, respectively, over Clemson.
The Cavaliers shut out the Tigers in the first 20 events, taking first in each with the exception of the women's one-meter dive. The Tigers took the last six events as Virginia competitors swam exhibition, choosing not to have their times counted for points, to avoid running up the score on the lagging Clemson team.
Especially for the women, the win over Clemson capped off an important doubleheader weekend in which they overcame a higher-ranked Penn State team that had beaten them twice last year.
"I guess if you read the rankings people might say it was an upset, but we were very focused mentally and well-prepared physically," Virginia coach Mark Bernardino said. "We knew it would be a great close meet and we felt like if we could take it to the last two events in the meet we could do the things we needed to do to win."
Bernardino said the weekend highlighted how much the team has improved since last year. He gave credit to the improved sprinting team for making the difference.
"We've improved our sprinting considerably, especially our freestyle sprinting," Bernardino said.
The Cavaliers proved this fact yesterday, taking first by comfortable margins in the 50 and 100-yard freestyle events for the men and the women.
This improvement, however, has not taken away from Virginia's tried and true area of success
Read More
Wrestling gets blown out 34-9 on long road trip to Stanford
By Ryan Weiner | 19 hours agoSolid performances from its most reliable trio were not enough for Virginia.
Freshman excellence powers No. 5 men’s tennis past Boise State, No. 19 Alabama
By Thomas Baxter | YesterdayVirginia, unlike many other regional hosts, held serve as its quartet's top seed.
No. 1 women’s swimming and diving destroys No. 2 Texas
By Xander Tilock | YesterdayOnce again, Virginia has proven to be head and shoulders above other top programs.
