Blagg Wins ACC Gold in 3-Meter Springboard

GREENSBORO, N.C. — University of Miami redshirt freshman Alicia Blagg made quite an ACC Championships debut Friday night, capturing a gold medal in her first trip to the conference meet at the Greensboro Aquatic Center.

Blagg, a talented diver who has represented her native Great Britain at the Olympics, finished ahead of teammate and fellow Hurricane Wally Layland, who earned silver in the same 3-meter springboard event.

Blagg posted an eye-popping score of 402.90 to win her first conference title.

Layland, who also win a silver medal in the 1-meter event in her last trip to the ACC Championships, was second (333.75) behind Blagg.

Junior Marcela Maric finished in 19th (256.30) while Carolyn Chaney was 23rd (236.50).

The night’s impressive performances by the diving duo capped a standout day at the ACC Championships; freshman Karolina Hajkova set the Miami record in the 100-yard backstroke in the morning’s preliminaries (53.58) and bested her own mark later Friday night with a time of 52.85.

Hajkova won the “C” final of the event with her time.

Fellow freshman Annie Kyriakidis qualified for the 100 breaststroke final and finished in eighth (1:03.18) in her heat after posting a time of 1:02.34 in morning prelims.

Sophomore Manon Viguier just missed out on qualifying for finals with a time of 1:48.39 in the 200 freestyle.

The 2018 ACC Swimming & Diving Championships resume Saturday morning at 10 a.m. with the prelims in the 200 backstroke, 100 freestyle, 200 breaststroke, 200 butterfly, and the men’s and women’s platform diving. The finals for those events, in addition to the final heat of the 1650 freestyle and the 400 freestyle relay, begin at 6 p.m.
 
Saturday night’s final session will be streamed live on ACC Network Extra.