University of Georgia Athletics
Seniors Get 'Perfect Ending'
March 24, 2017 | Swimming & Diving
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
Emily Cameron nailed it: "It think it all just came together in the perfect ending to a career."
For seniors Cameron, Olivia Smoliga, Rachel Zilinskas and Chantal Van Landeghem, the NCAA Women's Swimming and Diving Championships in Indianapolis last week was it, their final meet as Lady Bulldogs.
Memorable and successful Georgia careers were assured for all of them, but what would the ending be? Another national championship was out - nobody was beating Stanford, which dominated the event - but how about something special, something to savor? Perfect.
In the final race of the championships, the 400 freestyle relay, Georgia needed to finish second or better to claim fourth place ahead of Texas - the team that came to Athens and snapped Georgia's 103-meet home win streak earlier in the season. Fourth place gets a trophy, fifth goes home empty-handed.
Smoliga started the final race, followed by freshman Veronica Burchill and junior Meaghan Raab, with Van Landeghem swimming the anchor leg. Starting and finishing with 2016 Olympians? Yeah, this group wasn't going home without a trophy.
With Van Landeghem finishing strong, Georgia touched the wall in 3:08.97, smashing the school record of 3:09.40. It was good enough for second in the race behind Stanford (California was third in 3:09.08) and gave the Lady Dogs 292.5 points - Texas ended up with 292.
"Chantal used all 6-foot-3 and her wingspan, which is pretty dramatic also, to put it on there," Georgia coach Jack Bauerle said.
Margins literally can't get any closer in a swim meet, with the half point coming from Van Landeghem, who tied for sixth place in the 100 freestyle earlier. If she was the slightest bit slower in that race, Georgia is in a very different position going into the finale.
"It sounds silly but to leave there with a trophy rather than being in fifth is huge, particularly for the kids," Bauerle said. "We know we're a top four or five team and it could have gone either way, but just to leave there with a trophy, it just meant a lot to them. We erupted like we just won the whole thing."
Sure, Georgia won the national championship last year, with something close to a perfect meet, in Georgia Tech's pool no less. Sure, the Lady Dogs won it all in 2014, too, and in 2013 (when Van Landeghem was a freshman; she redshirted last season to train for the Olympics).
So yes, the four seniors all already had two national championship rings, plus a second-place finish in 2015. So what would a fourth-place finish in 2017 mean? Way, way more than you'd think.
"In the moment, the spilt second after Chantal touched the wall, I think the feeling of beating Texas by .5 was the equivalent, if not better, than the feeling of winning a national championship last year," Cameron said. "I think the whole meet was a testament to how hard we all work and how we all thrive when challenged."
Really, a fourth can mean as much as a national championship? Under the right circumstances, yes.
"When Chantal touched the wall I just immediately started crying," said Smoliga, who earned a gold medal in Rio for her work on the U.S. 400-meter freestyle relay squad. "I didn't think that I would because I usually don't get that emotional - even when I made the Olympic team last summer I didn't cry. This was so much more special, if that's even possible to say."
One reason beating Texas for fourth place meant so much is because of what happened in Gabrielsen Natatorium on Jan. 14. Georgia hadn't lost a home meet since Nov. 4, 1995, winning 103 straight. It was a very good Texas squad that ended it, emphatically, beating the Lady Dogs 171-124. Smoliga's win in the 100 backstroke was the only race Georgia won that day.
Texas is coached by Carol Capitani, a beloved former Georgia assistant, and Bauerle said he got no extra satisfaction from edging the Longhorns, even after they ended the streak. Not everyone felt that way.
"We weren't fighting for a national title, but we were fighting for something, and something meaningful, especially the way the season unfolded," Zilinskas said. "And the fact that it was Texas and they're the ones that broke the home streak, that added just a little bit more to the meaning."
But it wasn't just getting the better of Texas at NCAAs. It was the team Georgia became from that gut-punch of a loss, a team that put in the work and surged in the biggest meet of the season.
"It felt the best that a fourth-place finish could have felt," said Van Landeghem, who earned a relay bronze medal for Canada in Rio. "We fought for every half point and that ended up being just enough for fourth."
Based on seedings, which are based on times during the season, Georgia was expected to place seventh at the NCAAs. Georgia not only exceeded that by a good margin, it set numerous school records during the meet. And for a program with seven national team titles, almost countless individual NCAA titles and Olympians, Georgia school records are hard to beat.
It might not have happened without the loss to Texas.
"That lit a little bit of a fire in us, losing to Texas and losing our streak," Van Landeghem said. "Nobody wanted to be on the team that let that happen, but it did happen, and I'm really happy with the way the girls responded to that. We got right back to business and trained harder than ever."
"Sometimes the best thing that can happen to a team is to be disappointed," Bauerle said. "It takes care of a heck of a lot of coaching, it really does. You never can get through that unless you have good leadership, so as far as I'm concerned, it was the seniors that pulled this team through."
For seniors Smoliga and Van Landeghem, it was a fitting finale.
"My first ever NCAA swim was a relay with Chantal and my last ever NCAA swim was a relay with Chantal, so it's nice that it all came full circle," Smoliga said. "Before the race we gave each other a high-five and I said, `Last one, baby.'"
And what a last one it was.
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
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