Collegiate Times

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The H2Okies hosted their rival, the University of Virginia Cavaliers for their first home dual-meet.

The men’s swimming and diving team (1-2, 0-2 ACC) were beaten 177-123 and the women’s team (1-2, 0-2 ACC) 180-120.

Early on the H2Okies held their own in the 200 medley relay, winning second-place in the women’s race and first-place in the men’s. However, UVa began to pull away and won first-place in 6 of the next 7 races. Overall, the H2Okies posted a combined 5 first-place finishes and 10 second-place finishes on the men’s and women’s side.

Sophomore Charlie Higgins and Stephen Hawkins placed first and second place respectively in the 100 backstroke. Higgins posted a time of 50.63 seconds barely out-touching his teammate Hawkins’ time of 50.65 seconds.

On the women’s side, sophomore Erika Hajnal continued her success in the pool, winning the 400 IM with a time of 4:23.22. Last year she placed third in the same event at the ACC Championships.

“I felt we came out strong and really did our best to go toe-to-toe with Virginia, who’s the reigning conference-champions on the men’s and women’s side — one of the top-12 programs in the country,” head coach Ned Skinner said. “I was really proud with the energy early, certainly took a couple lumps in some of the earlier events and they got the momentum. But I felt the Hokies went out there and represented well.”

“I think we need to work on a lot of things,” he continued. “In particular, in freestyle there’s a whole range of events — everything from the 50, 100, 200, 500 and tonight we even did the (1650 freestyle event) mile.

“It just seems like in those events our freestyle is just not grooving. So we really need to work on that. Whereas our strokes the back, breast, and fly are really doing well. I just think we got to do more things in practice to focus on specific events,” Skinner said.

While both the men’s and women’s teams lost the event, there was a lot to be positive about.

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