When Georgia Tech swimmers Ed Brinkman, David Laitala and Jay Cerceo all touched deck ahead of Duke's Brendan McGill in the 100-yard freestyle event Friday at the Duke Aquatic Center, the Yellow Jackets essentially assured themselves of something their swim program had yet to accomplish in its 20-year history: an ACC victory.
With the exception of a forfeit by Clemson in 1995, Georgia Tech (6-6, 1-0 in the ACC) had failed in every ACC dual swim meet since joining the conference in 1979, but that all ended on Friday. The stunning first-second-third- place finish in the freestyle brought excited cheers of "one-two-three; one-two-three" from the Yellow Jackets as they celebrated the end of two decades of frustration.
Georgia Tech's domination of this freestyle event and the two team relays, combined with the fact that Duke (1-10, 0-5) had no divers available, helped the Yellow Jackets win easily, 149-82.
"We knew ahead of time we weren't going to have any divers there, so we wanted to win the first relay," senior Chris Wise said. "When we didn't do that, we needed to make up for it in other places. Unfortunately, we weren't really able to do that."
The first relay truly dictated the way the meet would go for the rest of the afternoon. After three-and-a-half minutes of neck-and-neck swimming in the four-man 400-yard medley relay, Georgia Tech's Matt Reed and the Blue Devils' Clint McHugh seemed to finish simultaneously. Upon examining the scoreboard, however, it turned out that Reed finished a mere .33 seconds faster, giving the Yellow Jackets an early 13-4 lead that they never relinquished.
Duke bounced back in the next event, as Wise won the 1,000 freestyle with a dominating time of 9:47.27, 11 seconds faster than the second-place finisher. However, the Blue Devils once again suffered the short end of a close finish as Georgia Tech's Hank Longmire nosed out Sean Feeney for second place.
"We were right there with them in all the races," senior Mark Rotblat said. "There were a lot of season-best times for us, but [the Yellow Jackets] swam much faster than [their previous times indicated they would]. It came down to a couple of races at the wire that really hurt us."
Aside from the two diving events Duke did not compete in, the Blue Devils did manage to win five of the day's 11 events. Freshman Chris Fleizach helped Duke bounce back from the embarrassment of the 100-yard freestyle, capturing first in the 200 backstroke.
Wise followed up Fleizach's victory with one of his own in the 500 freestyle. Along with wins in the 1,000 freestyle and 200 butterfly, this first-place finish gave the senior victories in all three events he competed in Friday. Wise acknowledged the performance was one of his best swim meets of the year.
The Blue Devils also received a win from Rotblat. Despite flu-like symptoms, the senior placed first in the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:08.03 in his final race as a Blue Devil in the Duke Aquatic Center.
"I'm really happy with how fast I swam," Rotblat said. "I wasn't feeling really well, but going into the last event I thought about how this would be my last swim in this pool. That really pushed me to swim faster."
Although the loss marked a dismal end to Duke's regular season, the Blue Devils will have a chance to avenge the upsetting defeat Feb. 25-27 at the ACC Men's Championships. While the Championships are primarily individual events, several of the Blue Devils said they will be swimming with the added incentive of vindicating themselves against the Yellow Jackets.
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