Despite what coach Brooks Teal described as “awesome” individual performances from his swimming and diving teams, both the men’s and the women’s teams fell at the hands of rival North Carolina on Tuesday night.
“It’s never fun to lose to them,” Teal said. “But we had some outstanding individual performances.”
The men fell 144-99 to the Tar Heels despite several first-place finishes. Teal said he was particularly impressed with the performance of sophomore Andrew Lester, who took first place in the 1,000-freestyle and second in the 500-freestyle.
Other standouts for the men’s team included juniors Dan Glauber, who won the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 21.37 seconds, and Jack Roney, who won the 200-yard breaststroke event in a race he started out losing.
According to redshirt sophomore Stephen Mellor, who won both the 400-individual medley and the 200-yard breaststroke, individual victories are encouraging, but a team loss to a rival never feels good.
“Personally, my attitude is always the same,” Mellor said. “If I win my races, that’s all I can do, and that’s what I’ve done today. I’m happy with the way I swam. I’m happy with the results of my swims. The team as a whole, I think they’re all the same. They all go in there with the same mentality that they just want to do the best they can.”
“If we win, it’s the greatest; we’re on cloud nine,” Mellor said. “But if we lose, you want to lock yourself in your room and you don’t want to see the rest of the world.”
The women also suffered a loss to the Tar Heels, falling 191-52. Despite a few bright moments, like senior Kerry Whitson’s second-place finish in the 200-freestyle, the women failed to take first place in any single event in the meet.
According to Teal, he is still proud of his young team.
“A lot of our young women stepped up and are learning, maturing, and they’re going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future,” Teal said.
Freshman Anna Linkenauger, who finished second in the 200-yard breaststroke, said the team swam well, and Carolina deserved credit for the victory.
“They’re a tough team,” Linkenauger said. “They were runners-up at the ACC’s last year. And yet we are a very, very young team. We have 15 freshmen, so we’re all still getting a hang of things coming into the ACC.”
Sophomore divers Austin Hampton and Alexander Dambly finished second and third, respectively in the one-meter diving event.
According to Teal, his team will continue looking to improve and learn individually in preparation for a meet at Clemson on Saturday.
“I’m proud of what we did, but we can be better, and we will be better,” Teal said.
“I’d rather be improving. I wouldn’t want to win and not be improving and moving in the right direction. I wouldn’t want to win like that. But you never like losing, and we just got to keep getting better individually, and wins will come our way.”
