CHAPEL HILL -- The swim team went to North Carolina yesterday with the intention of working hard in preparation for the meets to come. Coming off a hard fought victory against UNC-Wilmington, the Blue Devils plan to pick their battles this season. Looking beyond to the meets in the near future, Duke was routed by UNC 195-96 in men's competition and 173-116 in women's races. Both Duke's men's and women's teams dropped to 1-2 on the season.
"I think, for our preparation, the kids did a real fine job today," Duke head coach Bob Thompson said. "We're looking ahead to East Carolina where we can be competitors."
The Blue Devils had been training vigorously in practices and did not rest prior to this meet like they will for the upcoming competitions. Monday the team practiced twice, and even yesterday, the day of the meet, they lifted weights in the morning and conducted an afternoon practice before the making the trip to Chapel Hill.
Duke used this meet to experiment with its lineup. For both teams, the meet was more of a workout and practice, and less of a competition.
"A lot of [our swimmers] got to swim events that they normally don't swim," senior Amy Halligan said.
Freshman Kevin Arthofer had never raced in the 100-yard breast, but won in 58.82 seconds against a field that contained only one Tar Heel. In fact, UNC entered only one swimmer in many of the events in the middle of the meet. Further, they scratched all of their swimmers in the final three events.
"[The UNC coach] tries to make it fun for our kids and for his kids too," Thompson said. "We swim off the bench because we know we can't win; they swim off the bench because they know they can win."
At the beginning of the meet, the Tar Heels won the races by wide margins, finishing all four of their swimmers in each event in the top places.
However, Duke did have several notable performances. Among them, senior Lauren Hancock won the 200-yard butterfly in 2:06.05 over four UNC competitors. Halligan also raced well, losing by three-hundreths of a second in the 100-yard butterfly.
"I saw on my last turn that I was catching her, so I put my head down for the last few strokes, but I came up a little bit short," Halligan said.
For the second meet in the row, freshman Jackie Rodriguez won two events.
"I thought I'd do a little bit better than I did," Rodriguez said, disappointed that her times were slower than last meet's times.
The Blue Devils are looking forward to this weekend's meet against East Carolina and George Washington, where they are hoping to pull out another victory. Also, Duke is likely to start its tapering training next week in preparation for an 11-team meet at George Mason.
"We'll rest for [the next two upcoming meets]; that's why we can't rest now," Thompson said.
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