Of Virginia’s 25 varsity athletic squads, few are as storied as the women’s swimming and diving team. In addition to its 12 ACC championships — seven of them consecutive — the program produces All-Americans by the boatload.
But the program’s impressive resume still has one flaw — a lack of notable finishes at the NCAA Championship meet. When coach Augie Busch took over the program two years ago, his aim was to change that.
Busch took his first crack at the NCAA meet last March. But even though the women earned 123 points to place eleventh — the program’s second best finish since 2001 — the team knew it left something to be desired.
Every competitor was fully rested for the meet, but not everyone recorded personal best times. Furthermore, the 400-yard medley relay team — which broke the program record with a time of 3:29.42 in preliminaries — was disqualified on the first day of competition, likely costing Virginia a top-10 finish.
“We had better swims in us,” Busch said. “I don’t know what took us out of our game.”
No team enjoys subpar performances. And for the Cavaliers, the performance lit a fire in their bellies.
Another conference championship was not good enough for 2015. With their star-power returning, the swimmers want something more — the best NCAA finish in program history.
Virginia’s best placement came at the 1988 meet in Austin, Texas when the Cavaliers placed seventh. So from day-one, the goal was to crack the top-six at the 2015 NCAA Championships. And beginning Thursday, No. 9 Virginia (3-2, 1-1 ACC) will finally take to the pool in search of their elusive finish.
“We’re more fired up than ever to get in and train and then get back in knowing we have a serious goal we can actually make,” senior Shaun Casey said. “There’s just a different atmosphere than what there has ever been.”
The Cavaliers will take 11 swimmers – made up of three seniors, two juniors, four sophomores and two freshmen – in addition to junior diver Becca Corbett, who will become the program’s first female diver to compete at the NCAA Championships.
The women’s journey can be traced all the way back to November, when Busch took his team down to Athens, Georgia to take part in the Georgia Fall Invitational.
Unlike a year ago when Virginia competed in the Ohio State Invite, all of the Cavalier swimmers were essentially fully rested for this fall meet, allowing for scorching, NCAA-qualifying times early in the season. With most of his swimmers having already secured their bids for March, Busch could truly push his swimmers through his trademarked dry-land training for nearly five months.
But that meant dual-meet results were essentially disregarded — they served merely as another method of preparation. Still, even through disappointing defeats, including a home loss at the Aquatic and Fitness Center to rival North Carolina, Busch never wavered from his target.
“We’ve earned the right to make this [NCAA Championship] a stated objective,” Busch said. “This is where we as athletes are good enough to be at our best and show our skills.”
An underlying frustration certainly could have mounted a month ago at the ACC Championships. The Cavaliers — who traditionally fully taper for the meet — entered the competition still in the midst of their heavy workouts.
“It was hard going into ACC’s knowing that it was going to be more of a dogfight than it has ever been in the past — especially going in knowing that our stars aren’t fully rested and things can go wrong with that,” Casey said.
But while things did not go perfectly according to plan, in the end, it did not matter. Sitting in second place entering the fourth and final day of competition, Virginia got a needed jolt when sophomore Leah Smith and junior Hanne Borgersen finished 1-2 in the 1,650-yard freestyle.
Junior Courtney Bartholomew and sophomore Laura Simon added event wins on the day, and a second-place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay sealed the championship for the elated and exhausted, Cavaliers.
“Every single event got better and better and we got more excited,” Casey said. “We were able to get a good enough lead going into the final relay. From there, it was all heart.”
Now finally rested, Virginia’s core of 11 swimmers appears ready for an illustrious finish. Four Cavaliers — Bartholomew, Smith, senior Ellen Williamson and sophomore Kaitlyn Jones — will compete in three individual events, while five more will compete in two.
For the seventh consecutive season, all five Cavalier relays qualified for the meet. The 400-yard medley relay team of Bartholomew, Simon, Williamson and sophomore Ellen Thomas still hold the nation’s fastest time in that event this season after they clocked in at 3:27.84 — just .33 seconds off the NCAA record — at the Georgia Fall Invitational.
Among other notable rankings, Bartholomew holds the country’s fastest time in the 100-yard backstroke while Smith claims the second-fastest time in both the 500 and 1,650-yard freestyle this season.
With eight other times that rank in the top-nine of their respective events this season, Virginia is deep enough that nearly every swimmer and relay could place in the top-16 and score.
Those times should only improve this weekend, giving the Lady Cavaliers a great chance to finally earn their top-six finish.
“That’s been their goal since day-one,” Busch said. “We want to set history.”
The meet will run from Thursday to Saturday in Greensboro, North Carolina.
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