For Virginia swimming, their hardest ACC opponent may be the rulebook – The Cavalier Daily

As Virginia girls’s swimming enters their last preparations for the 2026 ACC Swimming and Diving Championships Sunday, they accomplish that not simply as a workforce, however as a juggernaut with a monitor document of pure, unadulterated dominance.  

The Cavaliers have captured six consecutive workforce titles since 2020, cultivating a fame for overwhelming relay victories and record-breaking performances. They maintain the ACC document in each single particular person and relay occasion, and personal the NCAA information in all 5 relays.

With the Cavalier Invitational full and no different ACC girls’s packages competing earlier than the championship, the common season is formally within the rearview mirror. Virginia heads to Georgia Tech this week having averaged 1,508 factors throughout their previous six convention championship victories, margins so dominant that runner-up groups typically end a whole lot of factors behind.

The ACC Championships function underneath strict constraints — chief amongst them being that solely 18 swimmers can journey. For most packages, filling these 18 spots with scoring athletes is an aspiration, but the Cavaliers routinely have greater than 18 who’re deserving. 

In truth, Virginia at present owns 83 top-24 swims throughout the 13 particular person occasions on provide on the convention championships — averaging over six scorers per occasion. Of these 83 swims, they’ve 24 present swimmers inside particular person scoring vary in at the very least one occasion, which means six student-athletes who’re quick sufficient to attain factors on the convention stage might be left in Charlottesville.

Nowhere is that this subject of depth extra evident than within the 200-yard freestyle. The Cavaliers declare 9 of the highest 24 convention instances, with sophomore celebrity Anna Moesch main the pack at No. 1 nationally with 1:40.25. Freshman Madi Mintenko sits within the No. 2 spot with a 1:41.70 — that ranks her at No. 6 within the NCAA this season.

The 200-yard butterfly presents a virtually an identical state of affairs — eight Virginia swimmers are ranked within the prime 24, led by Curzan’s conference-best 1:51.35. The distance occasions provide no respite for opposing groups both, because the Cavaliers have 5 swimmers within the prime 9 of the 500-yard freestyle, led by senior Aimee Canny’s No. 1 time of 4:34.26. 

The program’s domination of ACC rankings was solely exacerbated by Virginia’s last regular-season tune-up on the Cavalier Invitational final weekend. Historically a last-chance meet for bubble swimmers to earn locations on the ACC roster, a big portion of the workforce used it to drop NCAA-worthy instances in occasions they not often ever swim.

The headline got here from the ever-versatile Canny. In her first-ever try on the 400-yard particular person medley — apparently bored of the various occasions she is already elite in — produced a 4:03.36, a time that catapulted her to No. 4 within the convention and No. 6 in your complete NCAA. 

But Canny was not alone — junior Tess Howley posted a blistering 1:52.53 within the 200-yard butterfly, breaking the Aquatic and Fitness Center pool document for an additional No. 6 time within the NCAA. Freshman and Italian Olympian Sara Curtis ripped a 51.03 within the 100-yard butterfly prelims, then got here again at night time to clock a 50.68 in finals, a mark that now sits No. 4 within the ACC and No. 5 within the NCAA this season.

With this embarrassment of riches, one may count on Coach Todd DeSorbo to be buried in spreadsheets — however the former accountant-turned-coach insists his technique depends far much less on information than one may suppose.

“I always say, if I knew I was going to be a coach, I would have majored in psychology instead of accounting,” DeSorbo said. “Numbers and data are great, but confidence is everything.”

This philosophy could seem counterintuitive for a program chasing a seventh-consecutive convention championship and sixth-consecutive nationwide championship. He lets swimmers take the wheel on their occasion lineups, permitting them to swim what excites them essentially the most. 

“At the end of the day, if you’re looking at a top three finish in any one of a number of events, then just pick the one that you’re really excited about,” DeSorbo stated. “Because the events that you’re most excited for are going to be the ones that you’re gonna do best at, so you know [we just] kind of let them pick.” 

Letting his swimmers take the wheel on lineup choices displays DeSorbo’s perception that confidence and pleasure matter greater than any factors projection or workforce rating calculation.

“Sure, we give them some guidance … but at the end of the day, you know, a happy swimmer is a fast swimmer and we want them to be happy,” DeSorbo said. “We want them to have fun, and just swim events that [they’re] excited to swim and that [they] want to swim … if it makes sense from a team perspective then we certainly agree with it 100 [percent].”

That freedom is a luxurious, nevertheless it additionally creates a paradox of alternative for athletes like Olympians Canny and Curzan. 

Canny, the Cavaliers’ Swiss Army knife, presents a fancy conundrum. The South African ranks throughout the prime 16 throughout a staggering variety of occasions. She leads the convention within the 500-yard freestyle and sits inside A-final vary within the 200-yard breaststroke, 200-yard freestyle, 200-yard particular person medley, 400-yard particular person medley, 100-yard breaststroke, 1650-yard freestyle, 200-yard butterfly in addition to No. 15 within the 100-yard freestyle — that’s 9 potential scoring occasions for an athlete restricted to 3 particular person races.

Meanwhile, Curzan at present ranks No. 1 within the ACC in three occasions — the 100- and 200-yard backstroke and the 200-yard butterfly — along with her backstroke instances of 49.12 and 1:47.89 additionally main the nation. She additionally sits at No. 2 within the 100-yard butterfly, and inside A-final vary within the 50-, 100- and 200-yard freestyle. 

Each alternative precludes one other, and with many of those occasions being ones swam within the 5 relays on provide, Curzan and the teaching employees have rather a lot to think about this postseason.

Individual occasions apart, Virginia sits No. 1 within the convention rankings in three of the 4 relays they’ve contested this season — the 200-yard and 400-yard medley relays, and the 200-yard freestyle relay. 

Even within the one relay the place the Cavaliers aren’t slotted first — the 400-yard freestyle relay — they’re a microscopic three-hundredths behind first-place Stanford, 3:07.62 to three:07.59. Virginia heads into 2026 on a six-year win streak in that occasion, so the Cavaliers will little question subject their greatest to reclaim the highest spot come race day.

But it’s the 800-yard freestyle relay the place Virginia’s legacy looms largest. The Cavaliers haven’t misplaced this occasion on the ACC Championships since 2007 — a 19-year profitable streak that predates the present roster, teaching employees and many of the program’s latest dominance. But with 4 swimmers ranked within the prime eight of the 200-yard freestyle, that streak seems protected, regardless of not having contested the occasion but this season.

The ACC Championships additionally function a observe run for the NCAA Championships. With each championships being hosted at Georgia Tech’s McAuley Aquatic Center, the convention meet gives Virginia invaluable familiarity heading into the nationwide championship. DeSorbo considers this coming week a gown rehearsal as they proceed their season-long pursuit of a historic sixth-straight NCAA workforce title.  

“I think [having the meets at the same venue creates] a positive effect,” DeSorbo stated in an interview with The Cavalier Daily. “Uncertainty creates anxiety, and when you go to a new pool or a new hotel or a new breakfast … you don’t know what to expect, and it might take you a few days to get into a groove. This is like, we’ve just been here. We know everything.”     

The venue apart, the convention subject consists of No. 2 Stanford, No. 5 California, No. 7 Louisville and No. 8 NC State — packages that may go on to supply stiff competitors at NCAAs. But as Virginia heads to Atlanta, it’s primarily navigating the bounds of its personal excellence.