Three More Records Go Down At ACC Championships

Thursday, February 19

College Park, Md.

All Day

Duke University

Day Two

Three More Records Go Down At ACC Championships

2/19/2009 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving

By: Duke Sports Information

COLLEGE PARK, Md. ? Freshman Steffi Niessl tied the school record in the 50 freestyle in her leadoff split of the women's 200 free relay, sophomore Ashley Twichell broke the Duke record in the 500 free, and the Blue Devils broke the 200 free relay record during day two of the 2009 Women's Swimming & Diving ACC Championships Thursday. The meet is being held at the University of Maryland's Eppley Recreation Center in College Park, Md.

Duke remains in seventh place of the 11 ACC teams after day two, with two days of competition remaining. Duke has a team score of 118. Defending champions Virginia stayed in the lead after day two.

“For our first full day of swimming with preliminaries and finals, the team did extremely well and raced hard,” said head coach Dan Colella. “We scored a good number of points today on a day that actually had the least potential scoring for us. The next couple days will give us a bigger chance to score and move up in the conference scoring.”

Niessl's split of 23.45 tied the record set last year in the event, as she kicked-started the Blue Devil 200 free relay that would go on to break the Duke record in that event. Duke came through in a seventh-place time of 1:31.96 to break last year's record by over a second, with Niessl leading Kirstie Jeffrey, Meredith Bannon, and Shannon Beall.

Twichell then broke the 500 freestyle record, which she set herself last season, coming in seventh in a Duke-best 4:44.56. Distance teammates Jackie Fasano and Rose O'Connor also advanced to tonight's finals in the 500. O'Connor's 4:52.82 was a five-second season best.

Beall competed in the consolation finals of the 200 IM, taking 11th overall in 2:00.61, nearly a three-second season- and personal-best swim for the junior.

Competition resumes tomorrow morning with day three preliminaries, and finals to begin at 7 p.m.

Stay put on GoDuke.com for live stats coverage throughout the day and live video on ACC Select beginning with the finals (diving at 5:15, swimming at 7 p.m.). More information on the ACC Championships can be found at the attached link.

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