NC State Men Entering Texas Dual Meet, Championship Season With Key Depth and Momentum
The Texas men’s swimming and diving program has won 15 NCAA team titles under legendary coach Eddie Reese. The NC State men, on the other hand, have never finished higher than fourth place on the national level, with the Wolfpack earning the last team trophy on offer in 1955, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022. Texas has not finished below third at the national championships since 2007, at a meet held just 17 months after star NC State freshman Daniel Diehl was born.
Braden Holloway arrived as head coach of the Wolfpack 35 years after the men’s team had last finished in the top-10 nationally. Since Holloway’s fourth year on the job, NC State has not finished lower than eighth in the country while winning every ACC title but one. Todd DeSorbo was Holloway’s chief lieutenant in the early years, heading up a sprint group that included 2016 U.S. Olympian Ryan Held, and for the past six years, Mark Bernardino has played a key role on the staff, building up the NC State distance group into one of the nation’s best.
Why the comparison between these two programs of such different swimming fortune over the years? Because the Longhorns will be in Raleigh Friday to take on the Wolfpack in a dual meet, and for the first time in modern swimming history, NC State has a clearly superior roster to Texas.
At last season’s NCAA Championships, NC State placed fourth with 373.5 points, but the third through sixth-ranked teams were separated by just 16.5 points, with NC State merely 11.5 behind Texas. Now, the Texas roster relatively depleted following several graduations and star individual medley swimmer Carson Foster turning professional, while NC State’s deep and talented roster earned the Wolfpack the nod at No. 4 in the latest CSCAA men’s poll, trailing only Leon Marchand-led Arizona State, a Florida team rich in sprint talent and defending national champion Cal.
NC State had three victories at last year’s NCAAs, with the men’s 200 medley relay picking up first by four tenths over the Sun Devils and Gators, Will Gallant topping the 1650 freestyle and Aiden Hayes winning the 200 butterfly. Gallant is redshirting this season, and Hayes is not favored to repeat that title, not with the presence of ASU freshman Ilya Kharun in the college ranks. Finally, three of the four members of that winning relay are no longer on the NC State roster (Mason Hunter, Nyls Korstanje and David Curtiss).
But NC State boasts depth and still the third-fastest 200 medley relay in the nation, behind only the impressive times from Cal and ASU at a dual meet between the two schools last week. Moreover, star backstroker Kacper Stokowski, the 2022 NCAA champion in the 100 back, was not a part of the foursome that swam for NC State in its season-best performance.
Ross Dant — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
In addition to Hayes and Stokowski, the returning top-tier talents on NC State’s roster include distance standout Ross Dant, a member of the U.S. World Championships team last year and the NCAA runnerup in the 1650 free last year, and Luke Miller, who owns the country’s second-quickest 100 fly time at 44.17. Freshman Quintin McCarty looks like a difference-maker in the sprints, with McCarty owning a season-best 50 free time of 18.80, and three other Wolfpack swimmers joining him in the national top-15: Noah Henderson, Miller and Drew Salls.
Of NC State’s 11 individual top-eight finishes at the national level last year, the swimmers responsible for nine of them are back this year, with only Korstanje and Gallant departing as both chase international goals in the Olympic year. Even with Hunter gone, NC State has done a fine job filling the breaststroke spot on the medley relays with Sam Hoover.
Now, the Wolfpack have Diehl, a World Junior Championships medalist last year who graduated high school early to join the squad. Diehl is probably not an individual national-title contender yet, but can he contribute A-final points and relay depth? You bet, and it’s the multitude of solid-if-not-spectacular performers that provide the backbone for NC State’s success right now.
So far this season, only Arizona State has beaten NC State’s men, with the team coming off statement-making wins over ACC rivals Virginia and North Carolina last weekend. Perhaps NC State lacks the firepower to make a real run at Cal or Arizona State come March, and Florida sets up on-paper as a stronger team as well. The Wolfpack get less attention in an era of college swimming dominated by superstars, and yes, Holloway’s men’s group lacks that type of swimmer. But with perhaps the country’s top cadre of sprinters and individuals well-placed for success, expect the Wolfpack to perform up to usual standards (or better).
It would be foolish to argue that Holloway’s accomplishments at NC State can match up with his Hall-of-Fame Texas counterpart. No one would make that argument, not even Holloway. NC State has defeated Texas in dual-meet action before, but on each occasion, Texas has gone on to ahead in the all-important meet in late March. This time, though, the Wolfpack will enter championship season as the only squad in this matchup on the periphery of national-title contention.