The North Carolina women’s swimming and diving team learned that, in fact, everything is not bigger in Texas.
The Tar Heels navigated an unusual meet format, which limited teams to eight swimmers and a diver, to finish second this weekend at the SMU Classic in Dallas.
The six-team invitational forced teams to be creative with their roster selections.
Coach Rich DeSelm acknowledged the challenge.
“You try to come up with a competitive lineup,” DeSelm said. “Typically, you try to take your best swimmers, but you also have to bring some of the more versatile swimmers … It’s a fun way of doing things.”
While the Tar Heels didn’t take the top spot in many races, they claimed several second- and third-place finishes in championship races and won many of the secondary finals.
Those swims were key in securing a runner-up finish.
North Carolina started off with many strong performances in Friday’s relay races. UNC netted two second-place finishes in the 400-yard medley relay and the 800-yard freestyle relay.
On Saturday, junior Stephanie Peacock turned in a dominant performance of the meet for UNC. She won the 500-yard freestyle in 4:38.39, breaking the meet record. Peacock finished more than six seconds ahead of the second-place finisher, University of Southern California senior Haley Anderson.
