Feb. 25, 2012
CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. – One week after the women’s swimming and diving team improved upon last year’s ACC Championship finish, the men did the same Saturday night, paced by Anton Lagerqvist’s ACC title in the 200 breast. The men scored 289 points, which was good for sixth place.
“It was a fun night,” said head coach Courtney Shealy Hart. “I’m so proud of Anton, and for assistant coach Chris DeSantis. “They have worked very hard this season and it paid off with an ACC title.”
Lagerqvist, a sophomore who took home a bronze medal in the 200 breast at the 2011 ACC Championship, moved up two spots on the podium this year. He dueled with Duke freshman Piotr Safronczyk, and in a thrilling finish, nipped the Blue Devil at the wall by .02 seconds. The Gothenburg, Sweden native shaved more than a second off his preliminary time, putting down an NCAA “B” time of 1:57.01 in the finals.
Lagerqvist’s win is 13th all-time individual ACC swimming title by a Jacket and the first since Gal Nevo won three events (200 fly, 200 IM and 400 IM) at the 2010 Championship. It also marks the first-ever 200 breast title for Georgia Tech.
The 200 breast proved to be the most lucrative individual event for Tech over the four-day championship, as John Hermes finished sixth (1:59.36) and Ryan Salmon finished 13th (2:01.13) for a total of 37 points towards Tech’s team score. Lagerqvist and Hermes achieved NCAA “B” cut times.
Freshman Andrew Kosic raced to a fifth-place finish in the 100 free, posting a B-cut time of 43.51 and adding 14 points to the Jackets’ cause.
Elliott Brockelbank was eighth in the 1,650 free with a B-cut time of 15:25.44 and Andreas Nilsson was 16th (15:45.41). In the 200 fly, Nico van Duijn placed 13th with his B-cut time of 1:48.00.
The final event of the championship – the 400 free relay – saw the Jackets’ team of Kosic, Nigel Plummer, Jake Johnson and van Duijn race to a sixth-place finish in a B-cut time of 2:55.56.
Virginia won its fifth-straight ACC title, scoring 626.5 points and edging Virginia Tech by 32 points – the championship’s smallest margin since 2006. North Carolina (564 points) was third, followed by Florida State (542), NC State (334.5), Georgia Tech (289), Duke (271.5), Clemson (252.5), Maryland (207.5), Boston College (78) and Miami (27).
The Yellow Jackets scored 247 points during last year’s seventh-place finish.
