3/18/2021 football Edit

Relay claims NC State women's swimming first-ever NCAA title

Matt Carter • TheWolfpackCentral

Editor

For the first time in NC State women’s swimming and diving history, the Pack has won a national title, and did so in record-setting fashion.

The 4x100 medley relay team set a new NCAA and U.S. Open record time of 3:24.59 to win the race by over a half second over favored Virginia.

Sophomore Katharine Berkoff led off the relay with a 50.07-second split in the 100 backstroke leg to give NC State an early sizeable lead. Junior Sophie Hansson, a national title contender in the breaststroke races, swam her 100 yards in 57.01 seconds. That led to junior Kylee Alons swimming a 100 butterfly in 49.29 seconds.

Both Hansson and Alons had the fastest splits in their respective specialties, with Alons the only leg under 50 seconds in the fly.

NC State’s relay team is shorthanded due to the late scratch of sophomore Heather Maccausland, but senior Julia Poole filled in for the anchor leg in the freestyle with a time of 48.22 seconds, more than enough to hold off a monster sprint from Virginia’s Kate Douglass (46.31 seconds) to win the national championship.

The relay proved to be a huge boost for NC State in other ways, too. California was disqualified, negating a third-place finish and resulting in zero points for the Bears. That allowed NC State, who scored 40 points for winning the race, to leap Cal and Texas, who was third in the relay and netted 32 points, into second place in the team standings:

1. Virginia — 184 points

2. NC State — 124 points

3. Texas — 119 points

4. California — 114 points

Top four teams finish on the podium at the NCAA Championships and take home team trophies.

Earlier in the meet, NC State had four swimmers earn All-American honors.

Senior Kate Moore was fifth in the 500 freestyle, Poole was sixth in the 200 IM and Alons and Berkoff were fourth and eighth respectively in the 50 free.

Berkoff, Alons, Hansson and senior Sirena Rowe also finished third in the 200 free relay to lead off the first full day of the NCAA Championships in Greensboro. Action continues through Saturday.

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