The Virginia men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams will travel outside the commonwealth this weekend to face SEC competitors. The men will face off against Tennessee Thursday in an afternoon meet, then both teams will compete against Kentucky Friday.
The No. 12 men (3-0, 2-0 ACC) are looking to sustain momentum from last Wednesday’s 189-108 victory against Virginia Tech.
Tennessee “is a great team and [is] really talented,” Virginia coach Mark Bernardino said. “They have a lot of international stars and a long history of swimming excellence.”
The Tennessee men’s team also knows it will be facing stiff competition, as Volunteers coach John Trembley referred to Tennessee as the “underdogs” in this matchup, according to utsports.com.
Even though Tennessee’s coach may consider his squad to be underdogs, history suggests a different story. Tennessee (3-0)leads the all-time series 8-3 and has won the last two matchups between the two teams.
“We’re going to go down there confident and ready,” Bernardino said. “We want to compete with teams at that [national] level. I can’t predict what happens, but we’ll swim well because we’re a good, deep team.”
Both the men’s and women’s teams from Kentucky, meanwhile, have come up short in each of their first two meets, including losses to Tennessee Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. Bernardino does not see either squad as a pushover, however.
“Kentucky is also a really fine team, and they graduated some great swimmers, but so did we,” Bernardino said. “Bottom line is that they’re good and have been a nationally good team the past decade.”
A key race will be in the 50 free, in which Virginia sophomore Scot Robison — who was named ACC Swimmer of the Week for the first time in his career after the Clemson and South Carolina meets — shows his strengths. He will face a strong competitor in Kentucky junior Elvis Burrows, who represented the Bahamas in the 2008 Olympics in the 50 free. Even though Burrows has international experience, Robison’s best time from last season beats Burrows’ time by almost a full half second — 20.63 to 21.06.
On the women’s side, the meat of the action will be in the butterfly events. Last week against Virginia Tech, sophomore Liz Shaw set an AFC pool record in the 200 fly with a time of 1:57.53, an NCAA “B” mark. She will face off against Kentucky’s fly specialist, junior Megan Pulskamp, who won butterfly events in the 200- and 100-yard distances against Tennessee. While Shaw’s record time in the 200-fly is five seconds faster than Pulskamp’s in the 200-fly, the 100-fly race may prove much closer, as the two swimmers’ records for that distance only are separated by three-tenths of a second.
Virginia’s depth, though, may be the deciding factor; the Cavaliers have seen their swimmers go 1-2 and 1-2-3 in many events this season.
“The depth we have in most events will be really critical in a championship season,” Shaw said. “We all push each other every day and if I’m working on butterfly one day, I want someone else to work it with me, so we’ll both get better.”
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