Miami Divers Sweep Events on Second Day at ACC's
Feb. 19, 2009
College Park, Md. – Juniors Reuben Ross (men’s) and Brittany Viola (women’s), defending NCAA Champions apiece, swept the 1-meter and 3-meter springboard diving events Thursday inside the Eppley Recreation Center Natatorium in College Park, Md. Ross won the 3-meter event, while Viola collected the 1-meter title.
Ross, a native of Regina, Saskatchewan (Canada), picked up a score of 474.30 over the course of the finals in the 3-meter springboard walking away with this year’s ACC crown. FSU’s Terry Horner (447.95) placed second, with fellow Seminole Dan Frebel (406.95) coming in third.
The last 3-meter ACC crown for Ross came during his freshman year (2006-07).
Meanwhile, Brittany Viola bounced back from a fourth place position after the preliminaries to collect top honors on the women’s 1-meter springboard. Viola netted a score of 341.85 to finish ahead of teammate and two-time All-American senior Jenna Dreyer who was in second (333.70).
Viola, a native of Orlando, Fla., completes the first leg of her quest for back-to-back sweeps having won all three diving events a year ago at the ACC Championships.
Over in the swimming lanes, the UM team continued their assault on personal and season-best performances as sophomore Ryann Labreche toted a time of 4:50.91 – a new career-best performance, after the finals of the 500 freestyle. The Fort Myers product finished just one (1) second over qualifying with a `B’ cut for the NCAA Championships.
Teammate Deidre Novotny collected a personal-best time of 2:03.60 in the 200 individual medley, finishing 16th overall, and posting a season second-best performance for the Orange and Green in that event. She shattered her original time of 2:08.10 set over a year ago during the 2007-08 campaign by almost five seconds. Teammate and senior Britta Boesing posted a time of 2:02.95 in the finals, but set a season-best time of 2:02.38 during the preliminaries.
Junior Kirsten Pomerleau tied her previous career-best time of 23.51 in the 50 freestyle after posting a new career-low time of 23.44 seconds in the prelims. Pomerleau’s times were both season-best marks for the Hurricanes, downing Annika Saarnak’s time of 23.71 set in the prelims of the Ohio State Invitational.
The UM 200 yard freestyle relay team collected a season-best time of 1:33.54 with the help of Saarnak (leadoff), Lauren Jacoby (second leg), Lizzi Torres (third leg) and Pomerleau (anchor). The quarter downed their previous-best mark of 1:35.79, while also finishing just 00.13 seconds out of a share of another school record at Miami.
The Hurricanes have jumped from 10th up to eighth place in this year’s event with 90 points, and trail Duke by just 28 points.
The action continues tomorrow with a series of preliminaries and finals set throughout the course of the day.
Tomorrow’s action, as well as the remaining three days of the event, will be streamed live over the internet via ACC Select by visiting www.accselect.com. You can find more information on the entire event by visiting www.theacc.com.
For more information on the ACC Championships for swimming and diving, please visit http://www.theacc.com/sports/c-swim/09-sd-championship.html.
