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.
“Being the first home meet, I think we came out and we showed Virginia Tech who we are,” senior Sarah Ameen said. “Even though we had tough competition I think we performed as a team and we have some areas that we can work on but I think we overall had a good meet.
“(I would like to see) a little bit more team atmosphere, cheering, getting the parents involved and really coming to together as a team. ... Hopefully we can swim a little bit faster,” she said.
The H2Okies are now 1-24 all-time against UVa on the men’s side and 1-23 on the women’s side. Last year, UVa was the H2Okies’ only loss during the regular season for the men’s and women’s teams.
“We knew that in swimming it’s about time, about numbers,” Skinner said. “We knew that we were going to have a big challenge today so we really just stayed right on our training regime. We lifted weights, we have gone to four practices already this week. ... We actually worked even harder going into this week to see how our kids would respond. So I felt that all and all they went out there, they worked hard for us today.”
In diving, the H2Okies dominated the Cavaliers. The girls swept the top five spots in the 1-meter event, the top four spots in the 3-meter, and the men swept the top three spots in the 3-meter. This can be attributed in large part to the performances of junior Sarah Milton and senior Mikey McDonald. McDonald, a senior, earned honorable mention All-American honors last year.
“I think we knew Virginia was a tough opponent and we came out and swam our best, dove our best,” said McDonald. “I would say for Penn State we have 10 days now so we really are starting to get to a point in the fall season where we can start to work on some of the fine-tuning parts,” Skinner said.
The teams are looking to even their overall records and rebound after losing to two of the top programs in the ACC.
The H2Okies next home meet is on Oct. 31st against Penn State at 1 p.m.