Swimming and diving finishes second at invitational meet

12 points in swimming is not a lot.

Especially when a first-place relay finish is worth 64 points. Especially when you’re only down 12 on an in-state rival like No. 6 N.C. State.

But this weekend, the No. 9 North Carolina men's swimming team found out how quickly 12 points can take a turn for the worst. 

At the annual Janis Hape Dowd Nike Cup Invitational in Koury Natatorium — in which both the men’s and women’s swimming teams took second place — the Tar Heel men headed into the last event of the meet trailing N.C. State by 12 points. But they saw the gap widen for good as the Wolfpack took first place in the A and B heats of the 400-yard freestyle relay, while UNC only managed a B-heat second place finish and an A-heat fourth place finish, giving the Wolfpack a 31-point victory.

The men's and women's teams scored 1,490 and 1,685 points respectively for their second place finishes, which has Coach Rich DeSelm hoping his team learns from this weekend.

“Winning the meet would have been great,” he said. “It’s not the number one priority at this point in the season. I never want to say winning isn’t important, but individual swims, relay swims, how we go about swimming our races? Probably more important than the point totals. 

"But all of a sudden when you’re in a team race and you’re 12 points down from your archrival down I-40, you want to win. Hopefully, that's just fuel for our guys to just prepare better and be better every session.”

Junior Sam Lewis, who finished sixth in the 50-yard freestyle Thursday, first in the 100-yard butterfly and third in the 100-yard backstroke Friday, said this meet puts the season into perspective.

“It’s November, it’s early in the season,” Lewis said. “It’s about halfway through the season now, I guess. This meet, we came in knowing it was going to be tough. It was a lot of fun competing against them, having some good relay battles, some good individual battles. 

"They are going to be ready at the end of the season just like we are, and I think the battle we had here shows that both teams are focused on the end of the season rather than trying to win Nike Cup.”

In a meet that hosted a number of teams — including East Carolina, Duke, US Naval Academy, Air Force and Tennessee — the other storyline was the men’s diving team.

Combined, the men's and women's diving teams took four first place finishes, including first, second, third, and fourth in the men's three-meter diving Friday. They also had first, second, third, and sixth place finishes in one-meter diving Thursday.

Two of the first place finishes came from freshman Sean Burston, who attributes his success to the team atmosphere.

“Everyone is pushing each other in the diving well,” he said. “Basically everyone is just rooting for each other, everyone’s pushing each other. It's a great environment.”

DeSelm echoed similar sentiments about the diving team, the most consistent performers in the season.

“What I was watching when I saw the event was how enthusiastic they were for each other and how excited they were to be making dives, hitting dives, scoring points, being in the top two, three, four and kind of doing it for each other,” DeSelm said. “Anytime you have that dynamic going on and that team chemistry, it helps us all be better than we could be by ourselves. So thats probably the biggest thing that excites me.”

sports@dailytarheel.com