Virginia swimming dominates Penn State on record-breaking Senior Day – The Cavalier Every day

As the University’s winter break got here to a detailed, 1,156 devoted Virginia followers packed the bleachers on the Aquatic and Fitness Center — setting an attendance file — to look at the Cavaliers race the Nittany Lions.

Virginia pulled out all of the stops. Swimming fanatic and social media determine Kyle Sockwell — who can also be a former Arizona State varsity swimmer — roamed the AFC as a meet-and-greet headliner and on-deck persona. Behind him, World Championship-caliber announcer Kevin Cargill known as the races whereas concurrently DJ-ing the occasion. But for program alumni, household and associates, this meet primarily served to have fun the graduating seniors.

Deafening cheers rattled the brick partitions of the University’s Aquatic and Fitness Center as 9 Virginia swimming seniors made their strategy to the pool’s bulkhead for his or her Senior Day ceremony.  Family and associates lined the deck previous to the meet begin, bouquets in hand, ready patiently with teary eyes for hugs, items and well-wishes. Alumni clustered by the beginning blocks and waved outsized fathead cutouts of the seniors. 

When the formal celebrations ended and cheers subsided, the No.1 Virginia girls and No. 21 Virginia males wasted no time delivering a parting present within the second and ultimate dwelling twin meet of the season.  

The Cavaliers cruised to dominant victories over each unranked Penn State squads, with the ladies sweeping all 10 occasions en path to a 154-61 win and the lads taking all however one race to prevail 133-85 — regardless of projections that predicted the lads would win by a mere two factors. These scores are all of the extra spectacular contemplating each Virginia sides begin with an computerized 32-point deficit as they’re unable to area diving factors after reducing this system. 

The ambiance within the AFC was so electrical it triggered chaos from the primary beginning buzzer. As the ladies’s 400-yard medley relay was set to start, the starter’s whistle was drowned out by roars within the crowd — the opening backstroke legs all flinched or dove in late, and the false begin was not known as till the primary 100 yards had already been swum. Officials moved onto the lads’s occasion earlier than returning to re-swim the ladies’s relay. 

The Virginia ‘A’ workforce was composed fully of underclassmen — NCAA qualifiers and sophomores David King and Spencer Nicholas, coupled with the standout freshman duo of Maximus Williamson and Thomas Heilman.  

The Nittany Lions ‘A’ workforce challenged the Cavaliers in each leg, however King finally pulled away on the freestyle leg, shattering the AFC pool file in 3:04.05. That time wipes the earlier mark set by perennial powerhouse and present males’s No.1 Texas, who stopped the clock at 3:09.47 in 2021. 

The girls circled again onto the blocks, and the race was actually well worth the wait. Virginia fielded a freshman relay, a sophomore-junior relay and a senior relay to create some pleasant inside competitors. In true Senior Meet trend, the senior relay walked away with a press release win — due to Carly Novelline, Emma Weber, Aimee Canny and Zoe Skirboll. 

The all-senior quartet briefly trailed on the 200-yard level however surged from behind after Canny’s butterfly leg, finally touching first in 3:30.51 — over 10 seconds forward of Penn State ‘A’ contingent — and claiming some well-deserved bragging rights. 

After the opening relays concluded, factors continued to build up in procedural trend by way of the person occasions.  The Cavaliers rattled off win after win, typically in sweeping trend. 

Junior Claire Curzan, a Tokyo U.S. Olympian, received each of her contested particular person occasions. She dominated the 100-yard freestyle in 47.16 — over two seconds forward of the remainder of the sector — in addition to setting a season finest within the 200-yard freestyle in 1:43.50. Freshman Sophia Umstead was the one different Cavalier to double up, notching wins within the 200-yard particular person medley in 1:56.51 and the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:09.72, every a private finest time. 

One of the day’s tightest races featured a senior-freshman worldwide showdown. Senior standout Aimee Canny — who sometimes specialises in freestyle, breaststroke and medley — tried her hand on the 200-yard butterfly, stepping up towards vaunted freshman and Bosnian Olympian Lana Pudar in her signature occasion. Canny managed to carry on down the stretch to cease the clock at 1:54.49, edging Pudar by simply four-tenths of a second. Canny’s triumph epitomized the day’s theme — the seasoned seniors main the way in which, with a big swath of proficient underclassmen following proper on their heels.

Meanwhile, the Cavalier males continued to pour it on towards Penn State, profitable 9 of 10 occasions. Freshman phenom Williamson — already a part of the record-setting relay — later tore by way of the 200-yard particular person medley in 1:42.44, breaking the AFC pool file in that occasion as properly. Williamson added a victory within the 100-yard freestyle — 42.28 — to finish his personal double. King additionally picked up two wins, taking the 200 free in 1:34.09 and the 200 again in 1:41.33, out-touching senior Jack Aikins within the latter. 

In the top, Virginia honoured 9 senior student-athletes — Aikins, Canny, Greenwaldt, Matthew Heilman, Sophia Knapp, Carly Novelline, Sebastien Sergile, Zoe Skirboll and Emma Weber in becoming trend. Weber, a workforce captain, is an Olympic gold medalist for Team USA after swimming within the prelims of the ladies’s 4×100 medley relay on the 2024 Paris Olympics. Captain Carly Novelline is an NCAA champion, profitable gold as a part of Virginia’s 200-yard medley on the 2024 Championships. Canny is a two-time South African Olympian and multi-time ACC Champion and NCAA First Team All American. Sophia Knapp and Zoe Skirboll are multi-time NCAA qualifiers — and all of those girls are three-time NCAA workforce champions. 

Greenwaldt, a graduate switch from Augustana, was additionally celebrated as a senior after finishing her undergraduate research in three years. She is now pursuing a Masters in Accounting throughout her senior yr and has change into a keystone in Virginia’s new dash contingent.

The males farewell Aikins, a U.S. National Team member and World Championships qualifier for Team USA, in addition to captains Matthew Heilman and Sebastien Sergile, with Sergile and Aikins having each competed on the 2025 NCAA Championships.

Although this was the final dwelling twin meet of the yr, the Cavaliers’ journey is much from over. For the ladies, the street to a six-peat lies forward. For the lads, they appear to carry a younger, proficient and expanded contingent to each the convention and NCAA championships. But first, Virginia will journey to Blacksburg Jan. 17 for a rivalry twin towards the unranked Virginia Tech squads. The final time the 2 groups met, the ladies rolled whereas the then-No. 17 males suffered a uncommon loss to the then-No.19 Hokie males — so the Cavaliers will likely be eager to carry one other pair of assertion wins again to Charlottesville.