Newcomers Excel as UNC Beats Rice

These conditions usually don't lead to fast times, especially by a team's newcomers.

Don't tell that to North Carolina's women swimmers and divers.

The ninth-ranked Tar Heel women won their first meet of the season - and helped coach Frank Comfort pick up his 200th victory as the women's coach at UNC - on Saturday, cruising past Rice 201.5-83.5 at Koury Natatorium.

The Tar Heels (1-1) won 13 out of the dual meet's 16 events.

The contest against the Owls (0-2) allowed the Tar Heels to showcase their highly touted freshmen while the upperclassmen rested. They accounted for four of the squad's wins during the meet.

Newcomers Becky Acker and Charlene Wong won the 100-yard breaststroke and the 100-yard freestyle, respectively. Jessi Perruquet, also a freshman, won both the 50- and 500-yard freestyle.

Acker also had the fastest time in the 400-yard individual medley. But she swam exhibition and wasn't credited with the win.

"I'm definitely not the fastest 100 breaststroker or the fastest 400 IMer, but it was fun to be at a meet of this size now and win," Acker said. "My performances were good, though. I'm definitely happy with the times I went."

Wong swam the 100 free in a personal-best 52.89 seconds, beating her previous fastest time of 53.52.

Junior Molly Sullivan joined Wong by swimming a career-best 16:32.19 in the 1,650-yard freestyle. Sullivan's previous best was 16:37.20 at last season's ACC Championships.

Although Wong said she knew she would swim faster due to the obvious difference in training between high school and college, she didn't expect to see such quick results.

"The whole regimen here is working really well with my body and my swimming," she said. "But then when I won, I was like, `Whoa!' I really didn't expect to win any events like this year, and that was a really cool experience."

Wong was able to win due in large part to Comfort's lineup decisions. UNC's top-line veterans, including Erika Acuff, Katie Hathaway and Summer Mack, swam in a combined three individual events.

On the other end of the pool, the Tar Heels swept the 1- and 3-meter diving events. Freshman Lindsay Waddell won the 3-meter with a score of 295.72 and finished second to teammate Ashley Benner in the 1-meter. Benner finished second in the 3-meter competition.

"Right now we're really just trying to get in shape, to prepare ourselves for the rest of the year," Perruquet said. "But everyone is swimming amazing right now. It's really exciting because we're all pretty tired, and it makes us think we could do some major damage at the end of the year."

The Sports Editor can be reached at sports@unc.edu.