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The Daily Tar Heel

UNC Swimmers Lap Competition

The Tar Heels also swam against N.C. State and UNC-Wilmington, but they were outnumbered by the younger club team swimmers.

"This is a practice meet, where we get to practice racing," UNC coach Frank Comfort said. "We invite anyone who wants to compete ... and it is the only time we compete against non-college swimmers."

So accordingly, the annual Tar Heel Invitational is a relaxed meet for North Carolina.

"Our team usually does not put too much emphasis on the meet, so for most of the team, it was simply trying to finish our events with respectable times," co-captain Janna Turner said.

"We were all extremely broken down from a very hard week of training."

The meet featured four events: the 200 yard medley relay, the 400 individual medley, the 50 yard freestyle and the 1650 yard freestyle.

The men and women both swept the 200 medley relay with each of the relay teams coming in first, second, third and fourth.

The 400 individual medley went also well for the men. Senior tri-captain Sean Quinn won the event and junior Casey Coble came in second.

The women also outstroked the competition in the 400 individual medley.

Juniors Whitney Smith and Jessi Perruquet both overcame club team swimmer Brittany Johnson to take first and second, respectively.

And there were seven heats of the mile swim for both the men and women.

North Carolina own Yuri Suguiyama won the men's 1650 freestyle, with teammates Stephen Mohr and Reid Owen finishing second and third.

For the women, Kelly Weeks won the mile and beat her seed time by more than 11 seconds.

Smith, who swam all three individual events came in second and Allison Herman finished third.

"Kelly Weeks swam an awesome mile, she really pulled it out after being sick for 2 days and then practically going an NCAA time standard," Turner said. "To do the mile or 400 IM on a Friday afternoon after you have had eight practices or so, plus weights, and some of them lifted an hour before the meet.

"It was good to see all the girls just being mentally tough."

But even during Friday's competition, the Tar Heels were preparing for their meet this coming weekend against Harvard and Michigan.

"We just need to start focusing on the bigger and better meets in the future," Turner said.

"The Michigan/Harvard meet this weekend will be a good test to see where we are before our big invite of the season, the Nike Cup at the end of November."

Times and final results were not available at press time.

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The Sports Editor can be reached at

sports@unc.edu.