ACC Championships: Chiara Pellacani, Max Fowler Repeat on Boards
Chiara Pellacani and Max Fowler repeated as ACC champions for the second straight season as the ACC Championships kicked off in Atlanta this week.
Pellacani, the Italian Olympian, won the women’s 3-meter event on Sunday for the second straight year. She edged Miami teammate Margo O’Meara for the title.
O’Meara reversed positions on Monday on 1-meter, O’Meara winning the event she claimed way back as a freshman in 2022.
Meanwhlie, Fowler picked up a win Monday on home boards at the McAuley Aquatic Center on 3-meter after he finished second on 1-meter Sunday to Luke Sitz of SMU.
Pellacani and O’Meara were 1-2 all the way on 3-meter Sunday. Pellacani pulled away, scoring 352.50 points to win, with O’Meara second in 323.60. Stanford’s Molly Gray gave the Cardinal a big boost in the battle for team placement by finishing third, followed by Florida State’s Kayleigh Clark.
The 1-meter battle between the Hurricanes was much closer. O’Meara was first in prelims, but she needed every one of the 333.45 points to hold off Pellacani’s 332.20 in the final. No one else was within 30 points. Miami added a fourth-place result via Emma Gullstrand.
Sofia Knight, who was sixth on 3-meter, grabbed the bronze medal. Gray was fifth. Grace Courtney of Notre Dame was sixth on 1-meter and fifth on 3-meter.
The men’s springboards were even more consistent, with the top four the same in each. On 1-meter Sunday, Sitz was second in a crowd of three leaders in prelims but pulled away with 429.75 points in the final. Fowler finished second in 410.25, followed by the Miami trio of Matteo Santoro, Jake Passmore and Mohamed Farouk. (Farouk had been the third leader in prelims but fell off the pace in finals.)
Fowler left no doubt on 3-meter. He was sixth in a sedate prelims but exploded for a score of 459.75, an improvement of more than 80 points, to win by 37 points over Santoro. The Miami freshman was the leader out of prelims and scored higher in finals, but it was no match for the junior Fowler.
Santoro did stay two points clear of Sitz, with Passmore fifth. Cal’s Joshua Thai supplied the Golden Bears with a nice boost, finishing eight on 1-meter and sixth on 3-meter. Misha Andriyuk of Stanford was second in prelims on 3-meter but slipped to eight in the final.
Diving concludes on Tuesday with platform finals at night. That’s the start of the swimming competition, with the 200 medley and 800 free relays, with swimming running through Saturday.
