GREENSBORO, N.C. – Sophomore Joelle Vereb and junior Reka Gyorgy led the Hokies on the third day of the 2019 ACC Women's Swimming and Diving Championships with both reaching the championship finals of their respective events.
"Overall it was a very good day for us," said head coach Sergio Lopez Miro. "We started out with a good morning; like I said after the first session, we will get better every day and we got better. We had a lot of personal best times today and tonight during the finals we took some steps forward as a team. I am very proud of the whole team."
Vereb led a quartet of Hokies that qualified for the finals in the 100 fly. Joining her in the evening session were Kayla Purcell, Leah Rogers and Molly Sheffield who all earned spots in the C final of the event.
In the finals, Vereb turned in a time of 52.28 to place sixth overall in the event and reach an NCAA B cut. Purcell finished second in the C heat with a time of 53.16, also an NCAA B cut, to place 18th overall. She dropped almost a half a second off her morning qualifying time. Rogers finished 23rd (54.53) while Sheffield was 24th (54.78).
Vereb also swam in the B finals of the 100 breaststroke, finishing third in the heat and 11th overall with an NCAA B cut of 1:00.32.
"I was very proud of Joelle, she has had an interesting season," said Lopez Miro. "She has been having an issue this season with her Achilles, so consistent training has been difficult, but today she came out and swam some of her best times. Kayla also did an awesome job today in the 100 fly, she improved her time by almost two seconds to finish second in the C finals."
Gyorgy competed in the championship finals of the 400 IM in which she dropped over three seconds off her qualifying time. She finished with a fifth-place time of 4:08.72.
"Reka came out today and fought very well in the 400 IM, and with her time she should probably qualify for NCAAs," said Lopez Miro.
Margarita Ryan swam the C final of the 100 backstroke, after turning in a 54.06 in the morning session. She finished 23rd for the Hokies overall in the evening's finals.
The Hokies placed two in the C finals of the 200 freestyle with Loulou Vos and Abigail Andrusin both making the cut. Vos finished in 20th overall with a time of 1:48.47 while Andrusin was just behind in 21st with a mark of 1:48.55 – both dropped their time from the qualifying round.
"Our freestylers, Abby and Loulou swam faster than they did in the morning and moved up in their heat," said Lopez Miro. "I saw some good things from them this evening, listening to what we had to say and correcting on a few things from what they did in the morning."
Tech wrapped up the evening with the 400 medley relay with Ryan, Vereb, Purcell and Gyorgy combining to finish eighth with a time of 3:36.50, dropping 3.34 seconds off their seed time.
"Margarita swam a 53.82 to lead off the relay and that is a big drop for her," said Lopez Miro. "Joelle was a big piece of the relay team as well and Kayla added a split of 52.73 in the relay and it was very good for our team. It was a good relay."
Virginia Tech also picked up team points in platform diving from freshmen Brooke Leftwich (17th), and Teagan Moravek (18th) as well as senior Ashlynn Peters (19th).
The Hokies will wrap up the ACC Championships on Saturday with prelims beginning at 10 a.m. with the 200 backstroke.
