CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The No. 17-ranked Auburn women's swimming and diving team tallied 12 event wins en route to a 196-138 dual meet victory over No. 7 and defending ACC Champion Virginia on Friday in Charlottesville, Va., sweeping the butterfly events and all four relays.
"The women came away with a really big, passionate win," Auburn head coach Gary Taylor said. "They were fantastic from the first relay (200 medley) all the way to the final (200 free) relay. That really set the tone."
Claire Fisch, a junior transfer from Arizona State, won the 50 free in 22.73 and was a part of all four relay wins. She anchored the 200- (1:39.08) and 400- (3:37.23) medley relays and swam the second leg on both the 400- (3:18.50) and 200- (1:31.06) freestyle relays. She also finished second in the 100 free (50.16).
Senior Bailey Nero earned a pair of individual wins, taking the 200 fly in 1:58.28 and the 200 IM in 1:59.81, both of which are NCAA B cut times, and finished second in the 100 fly (54.17) as Auburn went 1-2-3 in the event with Aly Tetzloff (53.53) winning and Jewels Harris (54.31) taking third.
Senior Erin Falconer led off both of the winning medley relays and won the 100 back in a B cut time (53.76).
Sophomore Carly Cummings won the 100 breast (1:01.15) in a B cut time, took second in both the 200 breast (2:14.53) and 200 IM (2:01.71) and was on the winning 400 medley relay.
Freshman Emily Hetzer won the 1,000 free in 9:48.20, which makes her the eighth-fastest performer with the 24th-fastest performance in school history in the event. She also picked up a B cut in taking second in the 500 free (4:46.71).
Tetzloff closed out the swimming wins getting first to the wall in the 100 fly and swimming on all four relays, leading off both free relays and swimming the fly leg on both medley relays. She also picked up a runner-up finish in the 200 free (1:48.09).
"We really dominated a program that is known for its relay performances," Taylor said. "In between the relays there were exceptional performances as we came away with a lot of wins both on the boards and in the water. It came from all facets and was a total team effort."
Auburn's men had a total of five event wins, with freshman Christian Sztolcman winning the 200 free (1:38.05), sophomore Christian Ginieczki winning the 200 back (1:52.54), the quartet of Liam McCloskey, Santiago Grassi, Tommy Brewer and Matthew Yish winning the 200 free relay (1:21.66) and the divers sweeping the springboard events.
The No. 16-ranked Virginia men topped Auburn, 200-129.
"It's a tough loss for the men," Taylor said. "UVA is really deep and competitive across all events. The men fought hard and showed a lot of character throughout. They got down early but they showed a lot of heart. They came back and had some really strong performances individually."
Auburn also earned seven runner-up finishes out of the senior McCloskey (50 free – 20.51), sophomore Josh Dannhauser (500 free – 4:26.31), the senior Brewer (200 breast – 2:02.25), the junior Grassi (48.19), Sztolcman (100 free – 45.05), junior David Crossland (200 back – 1:52.55) and the 400 free relay team of Sztolcman, Grassi, Owen Upchurch and McCloskey (2:59.62).
"Across the board we didn't win a lot of events but we had some really good performances," Taylor said. "The men never quit. They are going to learn from this moving forward."
In diving, Auburn won three out of four events total, with junior Alison Maillard (309.23) and senior Scott Lazeroff (316.43) each winning the 1-meter and freshman Conner Pruitt (366.75) winning the 3-meter, all with Zone Diving Championship qualifying scores.
"I was very pleased in the fact that we took three out of four events," diving coach Jeff Shaffer said. "Alison stepped up and did a really solid job on the 1-meter after a little bit of disappointment on 3-meter. Scott was real consistent on 1-meter and Conner rebounded from a pretty disappointing 1-meter performance to capture the 3-meter event for his first collegiate win. We have a lot of areas to address and correct but overall being on the road for the first time, in a difficult environment, with not a lot of time in between events, I thought they handled it well."
Lazeroff also earned a zone score on the 3-meter, finishing third with a 350.25 while Pruitt was just shy on the 1-meter with a 279.75 in finishing fourth. Maillard rounded out her afternoon with a third-place finish on the 3-meter with a 316.95 while teammate Wendy Espina-Esquivel finished fourth on the 1-meter (255.00) and fifth on the 3-meter (272.03).
Originally scheduled as a two-day meet, the teams instead competed on one day over two sessions, drawing the racing order out of a hat before each race was contested.
"The meet format itself, of picking events out of a hat and not knowing what you're doing was certainly out of the box and out of the comfort zone," Taylor said. "I'm really excited and proud of both teams tonight."
Auburn will compete again on Friday, Nov. 9, when it travels to Knoxville, Tenn., to take on the host Volunteers as well as the Texas Longhorns. The meet is set to begin at noon CT.
Tigers split dual meet at Virginia
