Blue Devils prepare for ACC championships

This week, Duke will look to improve on its seventh-place finish at last year’s ACC championships.
This week, Duke will look to improve on its seventh-place finish at last year’s ACC championships.

The Duke women’s swimming and diving team, along with the men’s diving squad, enter postseason competition this week at the ACC championships in Christiansburg, Va. at the Christiansburg Aquatic Center from Feb. 15-18.

The Blue Devils (2-7, 1-6 in the ACC) will look to improve on their seventh place finish last year, though all three conference title winners from the 2011 squad will not compete this week, including defending ACC diver of the year Abby Johnston. Four-time defending conference champion No. 11 Virginia (8-0, 4-0) highlights a deep, 11-school field that includes three other teams in the nation’s top 25.

Senior Jessica Lyden will lead the women’s diving squad throughout the week. She has emerged as one of the conference’s best three-meter springboard diver in Johnston’s absence, and also holds the second-highest ACC score from the one-meter springboard.

On the men’s side, Cody Kolodziejzyk ranks sixth in both the one- and three-meter platform dives with top scores of 363.80 and 393.20, respectively. He will also compete in the men’s platform dive, along with teammates Shawn Hoffman, Jordan Long and Clay Pinckney.

Sophomore Christine Wixted is the top seed in the 100-yard breaststroke, qualifying with a time of 1:00.97, almost a full second faster than the second-place qualifier. She also qualified third in the 200-yard breaststroke.

Junior Cara Vogel will look to improve upon her school-record performance in the 200-yard backstroke, which netted her 12th place at last year’s conference championship. She qualified in ninth, one spot ahead of teammate senior Meghan Dwyer.

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