Heather Reger became the first Duke women's swimmer since Olympian Nancy Hogshead to garner All-Atlantic Coast Conference honors this weekend.
As a team, the Blue Devils placed seventh in the ACC meet in Chapel Hill, with 210.5 points. North Carolina, the host school, won the competition with 804 points.
Although Duke finished in last place (only seven ACC schools have women's swimming programs), several Blue Devils had strong showings in the meet, and the team was satisfied with its performance.
"I was really excited about the meet," head coach Bob Thompson said. "This was a nice way to finish the year for us. This reminds me of why I enjoy being at Duke."
Reger, a junior, placed second in the conference in the 100-meter breaststroke. Her 1:04.99 performance, which was just 0.2 seconds slower the winning time, was also more than a second faster than the school record in the event. Reger became just the fourth Duke swimmer in the last 17 years to earn All-ACC distinction--and the first since Hogshead won four events at the conference meet in 1981.
"She is one of the most successful swimmers I have coached in my 17 years at Duke," Thompson said. "I wasn't surprised [with her second-place showing] at all. She's been close before. And it was clear that she's been committed to doing something very special."
But while she knew that she had the talent to be among the top swimmers in the conference, Reger still did not expect to swim a full second better than her previous best time in the event.
"I was really shocked," Reger said. "I knew I could get to the finals, but I never expected to get second. It was the best meet since I've been here."
The 100-meter breaststroke was not the only event in which Reger earned points for Duke. She also placed sixth in the 200-meter breaststroke in 2:21, and was 18th in the 200-meter individual medley. Her time in the 200-meter breaststroke was also a Duke record.
And Reger was part of two medley relay teams--the 200-meters and 400-meters--which broke school records. Junior Molly Brown and sophomores Abby Huggins and Sue Kresel joined Reger as part of the record-breaking relay squads.
Brown swam 58.2 in the 100-meter butterfly and came back to win the consolation finals of the 200-meter fly.
"That was a great swim for her," Thompson said. "She had gone 2:10 in the morning, and was very disappointed with it. Then she came back and had a great swim and went 2:08."
Kresel and junior Pam Morris each added to the Blue Devils' point total in the consolation of three individual events. And freshman Dani Peterson advanced to the consolation of the 100-meter and 200-meter butterfly.
Some of Duke's best performances of the meet came from its distance swimmers. Sophomores Liz Harris and Kristin Sosinski and junior Abbey Jones placed 13th, 14th and 16th, respectively, in the mile freestyle. Thompson was particularly pleased with Harris, who has done well in dual meets this season, but struggled in the 500-meters earlier in the ACC meet.
The Blue Devils had hoped to slip past N.C. State into sixth place in the conference, but the Wolfpack performed better than expected, particularly in the diving events.
"You can't control what your competition does," Thompson said. "You can only control what you do. I think we had a very successful meet. I was very pleased with our kids. There wasn't anything they could have done better."
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