Hurricanes Win Gold on Men's and Women's Platform at ACC Championships
Feb. 18, 2006
<?xml:namespace prefix=”st1″ ns=”urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags”?>COLLEGE PARK, Md.– Juniors Heather Bounds and Derek Starks won the platform event on the final day of competition at the Atlantic Coast Conference Swimming and Diving Championship Saturday evening. The four-day meet was held at the University of Maryland’s Campus Recreation Center Natatorium.
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Bounds won her first conference title with a score of 314.75 on the women’s platform to take the gold.
“Heather continues to get better,” said head diving coach Randy Ableman. “She’s in very good shape up there. She had a couple of really great dives today. This win will help her confidence in hopefully becoming an All-American in this event; that is one of her goals for the season.”
Starks, who also won gold on the one-meter and silver on the three-meter, tallied a score of 331.40 in the men’s platform for his second gold in as many days.
“Derek did a great job today,” continued Ableman. “He’s been slowed this year by a stress fracture in his back so it was a huge step for him to do his dives this well. It’s very encouraging for the upcoming NCAA Championships.”
The Hurricanes also swept the ACC Meet’s Most Valuable Diver awards after winning four out of six men and women’s gold medals. Starks was tabbed the Most Valuable Diver for the men while senior Melanie Rinaldi, who won gold on the one-meter and silver on the three-meter, was named the women’s Most Valuable Diver. This marks the second season in a row that Miami divers have won both awards.
“I’m very pleased with their performance this week. As always, we want to win every event. We were just short of that but I’m very happy with how the week went,” concluded Ableman.
In the 1650-yard freestyle, junior Tara Erwin finished 16th with a season-best time of 17:08.25.
Junior Ashley Knapp touched the wall in 16th place in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 2:04.19. Freshman Margaret Ravenna, swimming in the backstroke C-Final, finished 18th with a time of 2:04.48. She saw a time of 2:03.07 in a swim-off earlier in the day.
Freshman standout Christine Zwiegers continued her run in the finals, coming in 10th in the 100-yard freestyle with a season best time of 51.17.
The 200-yard breaststroke event saw three UM swimmers return for the evening session. Freshman Melinda Hochard was the Hurricanes’ top finisher, coming in 19th with a time of 2:23.11. Magda Waszkiewicz finished 21st with a time of 2:24.48 followed by junior Kristen Lunak in 24th with a time of 2:26.22.
Junior Andrea Hughes finished 14th in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 2:06.09 while sophomore Capria DeVenuto came in 24th in the event with a time of 2:09.26.
Miami finished seventh in the meet with 237 total points, a marked improvement from its 10th place finish in 2005. FloridaState was crowned conference champion after totaling 596.5 points. Virginia came in second with 562 points. North Carolina was third with 517 points, while Virginia Tech was fourth with 409. Maryland finished fifth with 383 points, and was followed by Clemson (374), Miami (237), NC State (206.5), Georgia Tech (189), Duke (160) and BostonCollege (79).
“It was great for us to finish in the Top-Eight,” said head coach Mariusz Podkoscielny. “This was a challenging goal for us at the start of the season but we came together as a team during the holiday break and had a great six weeks of work. We accomplished our goal by finishing in the Top-Eight, so coming in seventh was icing on the cake.”
“I feel like we’ve turned a corner in the ACC. We keep chipping away and getting higher and higher in the rankings.”
