The ACC season for Tech’s swimming and diving teams came to an end last weekend, with the Jackets falling in contests against ranked conference foes Florida State and Virginia Tech in a three-team dual meet on Saturday. The men’s squad lost to No. 15 FSU 212-86 and to No. 24 Virginia Tech 187-111, while the women’s team dropped a 222-76 contest against the No. 25 Seminoles and fell 220-78 to the No. 20 Hokies.
The women’s team caught an early break when in the first event, the 400-medley relay, the A-teams for both the Seminoles and Hokies were disqualified for early starts. Tech’s team of sophomore Heidi Hatteberg, senior Lisa Pucci, junior Christine Chuang and senior Agatha Kwasnik took second place in the event with a time of 3:51.45.
In the men’s 400-medley relay, Tech’s highest finish was fourth place behind the team of senior Johnny Hagaman, senior Gal Nevo, junior Travis Wagner and sophomore Nigel Plummer.
Success was hard to come by for the Jackets as they faced two seasoned opponents, and Tech did not register a finish of higher than fourth place again until the tenth event of the day.
There, sophomore Matthew Vaughan took third in the men’s 100-breast. Vaughan’s time of 56.26 seconds was just .01 behind second-place finisher Scott Thacker of FSU.
The Jackets broke through with a victory when Nevo, the senior and former Olympian, finished first in the men’s 200-butterfly with a time of 1:50.37. The men’s squad followed up with another first-place finish as Plummer won the 50-yard free event, finishing in 20.53 seconds.
The action shifted to the diving board, where the Jackets had one diver place in each event. Senior Hannah Krimm’s score of 276.10 was good for third place in the women’s one-meter dive, while freshman Brandon Makinson notched a 319.40 to take fifth in the men’s event.
In the first men’s event after the one-meter dives, Plummer finished second in the 100-free with a time of 46.13 seconds. Nevo and Vaughan finished second and third, respectively, in the 200-breast.
The divers then concluded their afternoon with the three-meter dive, and Krimm (325.65) and Makinson (389.60) both took second place in their respective events.
Nevo took first place in the 200-medley shortly afterward, beating FSU’s Rob Holderness by nearly two full seconds with a time of 1:50.46.
The women’s A-team of freshman Kate Riley, freshman Lexi Weber, sophomore Sarah Broadley and the senior Kwasnik placed third in the 400-free relay, finishing the event in 3:26.33.
The dual meet marked the final ACC event for the Jackets until the conference championships from Feb. 17-20.
“We’ll come back, try to fix the problems we’ve had and get geared up for the [ACC Championships] in a couple of weeks,” Head Coach Courtney Hart said.
The Jackets will close out the regular season at home on Saturday against Emory.