PREVIEW: UNC swimming and diving team features new stars as season begins

The North Carolina swimming and diving team kicks off the 2018-19 season in a Friday night meet against East Carolina University. 

With an influx of new faces and returning talent, the Tar Heels are set to improve on last year’s performances in the NCAA Championships.

“We are excited about the season and the team,” head swimming coach Rich DeSelm said. “We’ve been working hard and our competitive season is upon us with our first meet this weekend.”

In 2018, the UNC women placed 25th at the NCAA Championships, led by a 10th-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle from senior All-America Caroline Baldwin. Though Baldwin is gone, Zhada Fields, a junior last year, returns. Fields qualified for the NCAA Championships for the third straight year in the 2017-2018 campaign and will be a leader this season.

“Zhada Fields, a senior captain, she had a banner year last year and has some high goals for this year and we think that she has the ability to reach those goals,” DeSelm said.

On the men’s side, UNC sent two athletes — first-year Greg Duncan and senior Michael McBryan — to the NCAA Championships. McBryan’s 24th-place finish in the 200-yard breaststroke and Duncan’s 11th-place showing in the 3-meter dive earned six points for UNC as a team. The Tar Heels finished 36th in the country. 

UNC had 12 seniors on last season’s roster. DeSelm, who is in his 11th year as UNC's head swimming coach, is concerned about the departures, though he knows it’s just a natural part of coaching a collegiate team. 

“After coaching as long as I have, you kind of come to expect that people are going to graduate, and ultimately that is the goal,” he said. “It’s always hard to lose people that are providing a lot of positive things ... So, we always know it’s coming. We don’t necessarily like it." 

On Sept. 22, DeSelm had an early look at his team with the Blue vs. White Intrasquad Meet. He got to see some of the young performers who might fill the shoes left by last year’s seniors.

“Mostly it was an opportunity for them to race and compete with one another and for them to show us what they could bring in terms of skill and time, speed,” he said. “And show us all the things that we can learn from and work in practice to improve."

First-years were the highlight of the meet, which DeSelm called “a glorified practice.”

DeSelm spoke highly of first-years Tucker Burhans, Tomas Sungaila and Sophie Lindner. Sungaila won both the 200 and 100-meter freestyle races, while Lindner had a strong showing in the backstroke.

“She had an outstanding day and actually cracked the all-time top-ten for UNC women in the 200-backstroke. So she put up some outstanding times,” DeSelm said. 

DeSelm said he is worried about the loss of seniors like McBryan and Baldwin but is optimistic about his new squad.  

“(I’ve) got a lot of unanswered questions about personnel, but excited about seeing the new freshmen and how they can impact our team and our success,” he said. 

Not all of North Carolina's losses were seniors, however. Duncan, who was one of UNC's top performers last season, transferred to Purdue after just one year in Chapel Hill. 

Last year, Duncan won the 2017 USA Diving Winter National Championships in the 3-meter synchronized dive. He followed that performance with an excellent season, winning ACC Male Diver of the Year honors and qualifying for the NCAA Championships.   

While Duncan's loss hurts, the remaining divers benefit from the steady hand of head diving coach Abel Sanchez, who was named ACC Male Diving Coach of the Year last season. Sanchez also coached Team USA this summer at the FINA Madrid Grand Prix.

After the Tar Heels’ first meet of the season Friday, they will return home to Chapel Hill to host South Carolina in the only home event of the fall season on Oct. 26th. 

It’s a long season before the ACC Championships in February and NCAA Championships in March, but in the upcoming events, DeSelm will learn a lot about his team. 

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