If last weekend's mighty victories against Pittsburgh were any indication, the Virginia men's and women's swimming and diving teams are hitting their strides at just the right time of the year. With suddenly fearsome North Carolina State coming to town Saturday, the Cavaliers will need a similarly strong, well-rounded performance to defend their home pool.
The No. 11 Virginia women (7-0, 3-0 ACC) will put their undefeated dual meet record on the line against the Wolfpack (8-4, 3-4 ACC) in their final dual meet of the season.
The No. 15 Virginia men (4-3, 2-1 ACC) face perhaps the bigger challenge against No. 23 NC State (9-1, 6-1 ACC), which is fresh off an upset of intrastate rival North Carolina last week, albeit by a narrow six-point margin. The victory broke the Wolfpack's 12-year losing streak against the Tar Heels.
The Cavalier men lost to the Tar Heels two weeks ago, but rebounded well last week. Sophomore Taylor Grey said the team's resilience will help the men be competitive in the battle for conference supremacy at the ACC Championships in Blacksburg, Va. later this month.
"When we went to Carolina, we came together as a team a lot more than we had in our past few meets, which was really important for developing the identity of our team," Grey said.
"As we went through the hard training the last few weeks we got stronger, and even though we lost to Carolina, I think [the benefits] are showing now."
The Cavaliers' Achilles heel all season has been an inability to score points early in meets. Against Pittsburgh, however, the Cavaliers struck quickly with senior Briggy Imbriglia's first-place performance in the three-meter diving competition, as well as the team's triumph in the 200 medley relay.
The Wolfpack pose an especially significant threat in the relays after nailing down an NCAA 'B' standard in the 400 freestyle relay last week and barely missing a 'B' cut in the 200 medley relay.
The virtually flawless routines performed by Imbriglia last week are a positive sign for Virginia as it searches for consistency from its veteran leaders.
"I've been doing the same dives for a while now," Imbriglia said. "I'm going into each and every dive knowing that I can potentially do this for sevens and eights. It's a good feeling [thinking] 'which dive are you going to hit' instead of 'which dive are you going to mess up.'"
Both Cavalier teams are eager to post some fast times in the coming weeks as they begin to taper off their training.
With the women's conference meet coming up Feb. 15-18, and the men's competition taking place the following week, coach Mark Bernardino's long-term plan made before the season now calls for a lighter workout load with more focus on recovery to enable the swimmers to peak at their most important meets.
"We trained extremely hard during Winter Break," Bernardino said. "We went back to our normal training [when the semester began], but there was no major sacrifice in volume [yet], just longer intervals that give the swimmers more rest."
In addition to the physical advantages gained from the break, Virginia also expects to benefit from the renewed mental freshness which accompanies it.
After defeating the Panthers, the Cavaliers were in high spirits as they celebrated both the victory and the imminent completion of their most rigorous training of the year, Grey said.
In recent years, the struggle for the conference crown has often come down almost exclusively to Virginia and North Carolina in both the men's and women's meets. With NC State's win last week, however, there appears to be at least a third team in the mix this season.
Although the results from tomorrow's meet will have no direct impact on the outcome in Blacksburg, Bernardino said the Cavaliers are not overlooking the Wolfpack and intend to take advantage of the opportunity to reassert themselves as the team to beat in the ACC.
"We probably couldn't ask for a tougher meet to go into the conference meet with so, actually, win, lose or draw I'm glad we're going to have an opponent that's really going to test us right to the nth degree and push us so we can see where we are," Bernardino said.
The meet will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Aquatic and Fitness Center.
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