UM Shines on Opening Day of ACC ChampionshipsUM Shines on Opening Day of ACC Championships

UM Shines on Opening Day of ACC Championships

Swimming & Diving

Feb. 16, 2011

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Atlanta, Ga. – The University of Miami 200-yard medley relay team set a new school record and took third place in opening day action of the Atlantic Coast Conference Swimming & Diving Championships inside the Georgia Tech Aquatics Center on Wednesday evening. The Hurricanes share a fourth place team ranking alongside Virginia Tech with 54 points after the first day of swimming.

Under the direction of fifth-year swimming head coach Christie Shefchunas, the Hurricanes’ 200 medley relay team became the first podium finisher for Miami in more than three years. The team, comprised of Whitney Stephenson (leadoff), Sofia Johansson (second), Annika Saarnak (third) and Kelsi Hall (anchor), turned in a school-record breaking time of 1:38.88 – collecting an NCAA “B” qualifying time in the process.

“I’m so, so proud of the ladies,” said Shefchunas afterwards. “This is the first time on the podium for UM in years. Our time is right at what it was a year ago when we qualified for NCAA’s. This sets our team up beautifully for a great week.”

In fact, the time produced by the `Canes on Wednesday is more than four seconds faster than last year’s qualifying time at ACC’s in Chapel Hill, N.C.

This marks the second time this year the `Canes 200 medley relay team set a school record, also having done so inside the Georgia Tech Aquatics Center back on Nov. 20, 2010 as part of the Georgia Tech Fall Invitational. Shefchunas and other coaches around the league agree the facility has one of the fastest pools around, and it showed just that fact again on Wednesday.

In the 800-yard freestyle relay, Miami finished eighth overall with a time of 7:29.46 – which is almost 14 seconds faster than the year’s previous best mark of 7:42.74 put up during the All-Florida Invitational to begin the 2010-11 campaign. The 800 free relay squad on Wednesday consisted of Lauren Jacoby (leadoff), Whitney Stephenson (second), Ryann Labreche (third) and Alexis Fee (anchor).

Live results for the ACC Championships can be accessed by clicking here, or simply logging on to TheACC.com. Results will update after each event throughout the course of the four-day event.

Beginning on Thursday, Feb. 17, live video streams of each evening’s finals events will also be available by clicking here, or logging on to TheACC.com.

For complete coverage of this year’s ACC Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships, locate your internet browser to TheACC.com and browse to the ACC Swimming & Diving Championships page.

For more information on the University of Miami swimming & diving team, please log on to HurricaneSports.com. Once there, you will find up-to-date news, stats and information regarding the Hurricanes swimming & diving program.

You can keep up-to-date with all UM Athletics via twitter at Twitter.com/HurricaneSports. You can also become a fan of the ‘Canes on Facebook at Facebook.com/MiamiHurricanes.