Hokie ClubATLANTA - The Virginia Tech swimming and diving team turned in multiple record-setting swims and saw a gold medal diving performance on its first day of competition at the ACC Swimming and Diving Championships on Monday evening.
Sophomore diver Ashlynn Peters placed first in the women’s three meter event with a score of 365.95, the second highest score in program history.
Junior Klaudia Nazieblo broke her own program best time in the 50 back leading off the school record-breaking 200 medley relay. Senior Jessica Hespeler’s 800 free relay lead off time of 1:44.07 in the 200 free also broke her own program record. The 800 free relay time of 7:04.63 was the fourth-fastest in the final and was an automatic qualifying time to the NCAA Championships. All four school records that were broken on Monday evening involved Nazieblo and Hespeler.
“Four school records and an A cut time in the 800 free relay is a near perfrect start for us,” head coach Ned Skinner said. “The team is very charged up and Ashlynn’s title in the three meter to end the evening has us really pumped for the individual swimming events tomorrow morning.”
Peters is the first Tech women’s diver since Kaylea Arnett in 2015 to win a gold medal at the conference championship. It’s the Cypress, Texas native’s first time reaching the podium in her young career after placing seventh in the platform as a true freshman in 2016.
“It was a little bumpy in the prelims for both the men and women but Ben Schiesl did a great job making the finals and Ashlynn had an amazing performance,” head diving coach Ron Piemonte said. “Being an ACC Champion is always an amazing accomplishment. This combined with some of the great performances in swimming will help our momentum as the meet continues.”
Action at the 2017 ACC Championships will start back up tomorrow at 10 a.m. with the prelims of the 500 free. Live coverage of the finals on WatchESPN via ACC Network Extra will begin at 6 p.m.