Women's swimming team earns first top-20 finish in 9 years

In its 19th-place finish at the NCAA women’s championship meet at Auburn this weekend, North Carolina’s swimmers scored 44 points.

Of those, sophomore Stephanie Peacock had a hand in scoring 42.

Peacock broke a 22-year-old NCAA record in the 1650-yard freestyle with a title-winning time of 15 minutes, 38.79 seconds. She also placed third in the 500-yard freestyle and led off for UNC’s 800-yard freestyle relay squad.

UNC’s only other individual points came from Cari Blalock, who set a personal best in prelims for the 400-yard individual medley and scored two points for the Tar Heels with her 15th-place swim in finals.

The remaining six points were tacked on by UNC’s 800-yard freestyle relay team of Peacock, Danielle Siverling, Katie Nolan and Blalock. Both performances merited honorable-mention All-America honors.

“We passed our recent history, which has been that we’ve underachieved for the NCAA meet,” coach Rich DeSelm said.

“But it’s a hard meet to be invited to, and you have to be an outstanding athlete and have worked very hard.”

So for young swimmers like Siverling, simply competing at the championship is a small victory.

“It was just a really high-intensity meet,” she said. “It was great to be part of it, seeing people going so fast and, of course, watching Stephanie’s mile.

“It was different because usually the mile doesn’t end so closely, but her and the second-place girl were really close and kept going back and forth, and it was awesome to watch Stephanie touch her out at the end.”

The outcome of the 1650-yard freestyle is usually decided well before the final touch, but Peacock beat out Georgia senior Wendy Trott by just 15 hundredths of a second. Trott came into the race looking to defend for the third time a title that she had held since her freshman year.

“I saw that (Trott) was catching me, so I started picking up more,” Peacock said. “It was about five laps left that I realized that I had a shot at winning it. I was both staying ahead and keeping strong.”

Her time was eight seconds below her previous personal best. As an indication of how close the finish really was, Trott’s second-place mark now also stands as second all-time.

From here, DeSelm said he hopes Peacock’s example will inspire success among the younger swimmers that will carry the program to greater heights.

“(Peacock) is clearly innately talented, but talent alone is not going to get you there,” DeSelm said. “She works hard, she takes care of her body, she’s fit and she’s a racer. She did all the right things leading up to the meet, and she gave herself the opportunity to do something special.”

For his team, DeSelm wanted something that for UNC’s program would also be special: to make the top 20.

Until this weekend, UNC hadn’t been among that group at a national championship meet in nine years.

Leaving Alabama with a 19th-place finish, DeSelm is satisfied but would prefer that his team not wait another nine years to do it again.

“I think this is a great stepping stone,” he said. “But we need to use it, learn from it and embrace it and not forget how much goes into getting your goals.”

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.