North Carolina Women Edge Duke on Final Relay to Complete Sweep in Rivalry Meet
One of the top rivalries in college sports had its annual swimming showcase Friday afternoon in Durham, N.C., as the Duke Blue Devils hosted North Carolina, with the Tar Heels making the 30-minute drive north on U.S. highway 15-501 for the contest. The men’s meet was an easy North Carolina victory, with UNC winning 14 out of 16 events in a 227-65 win. But the back-and-forth women’s meet came down to the wire before UNC scored a five-point win.
In the home stretch of the meet, Duke pulled into the lead with a 1-2-3 finish in the 200 IM, as Sarah Roley won in 1:59.61 ahead of teammates Catherine Belyakov (1:59.67) and Martina Peroni (2:01.37), but North Carolina defeated Duke by two-thirds of a second in the meet-concluding 400 freestyle relay to earn the win.
UNC’s team of Greer Pattison, Delaney Carlton, Madeline Smith and Elizabeth Sowards won in 3:19.80, with Sowards making up a half-second deficit on Foley on the anchor leg. Meanwhile, the Tar Heels’ B team placed third, giving head coach Mark Gangloff’s squad just enough to emerge with a 152.5-147.5 triumph.
“We knew the women’s meet would be close and might come down to the last relay.” Gangloff said, per UNC Athletics. “We knew we had a team that could come here and beat them, but you have to execute, and they did that. I’m super proud of them.”
North Carolina also scored a win in the 200 medley relay to open the meet, with the team of Pattison, Skyler Smith, Ellie VanNote and Carlton clocking 1:38.27 to beat the Blue Devils’ top group by less than three tenths. UNC then got a win from Lily Reader in the 1000 free (9:59.17) before Duke went on a run of individual wins.
Strong efforts in the 100 free, where Carlton (50.61), Pattison (50.78) and Smith (50.94) placed 1-2-3, and 100 butterfly, where VanNote edged out Duke’s Aleyna Ozkan by seven hundredths, 53.51 to 53.58, helped the Tar Heels stay ahead. And of course, reliable diver Aranza Vazquez Montaño, last year’s NCAA champion on both 1-meter and 3-meter, swept her events Friday, scoring 349.95 on 1-meter ad 368.78 on 3-meter.
For Duke, Foley earned her first win of the day in the 200 free (1:48.89), and she was followed by Ali Pfaff topping the 100 backstroke (53.26), Kaelyn Gridley winning the 100 breaststroke (1:00.31), Peroni topping the 200 fly (1:55.97) and Tatum Wall touching first in the 50 free (23.07). Later on, Pfaff would win the 200 back (1:55.91) and Gridley would become the second of an eventual three Duke double winners on the day as she won the 200 breast (2:13.03). Duke’s Yixuan Chang edged UNC’s Reader by two hundredths to win the 500 free, 4:52.26 to 4:52.28.
The men’s meet was all Tar Heels, all the time, beginning with Walker Davis, Kendall Ewing, Boyd Poelke and Patrick Hussey leading a 1-2 finish in the 200 medley relay with their final time of 1:28.11. The meet concluded in similar fashion as Louis Dramm, Tyler Roberton, Poelke and Hussey combined for a time of 3:00.64 in the 400 free relay while the Tar Heels’ B team came in second place.
Individually, the Tar Heels opened with Keith Williams topping the 1000 free (9:34.86), and he later won the 500 free as well (4:38.96). Dramm took the 200 free (1:38.58) and Davis the 100 back (48.27). Ben Delmar dominated the 100 breast (54.29) and 200 breast (1:56.90) while Hussey led the way in the 200 fly (1:48.48) and Roberton won the 50 free (20.49). Matthew Van Deusen was the winner of the 100 free (44.92), and Colin Whelehan took first place in the 200 back (1:47.28). Poelke added an individual win in the 100 fly (47.83). Rodolfo Vazquez finished first in 1-meter diving (365.25).
Duke did not earn a men’s swimming win until the final event, when Michael Jiang beat out Hussey by a half-second in the 200 IM, clocking 1:49.44. Yannia Schattman won 3-meter diving (377.18).