COLLEGE SWIMMING ROUNDUP

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🏊‍♀️ SWIMS OF THE WEEK 🏊🏽‍♂️

On tap this week was NCAA Champs for the Division I Women and Division III!

Kate Douglass, GOAT

The Queen was crowned at women's DI NCAAs this week. This was KD's meet, in chronological order:

• 20.34 200 medley relay anchor (1st, NCAA record)

• 1:48.37 200 IM (1st, NCAA record)

• 21.01 200 free relay leadoff (1st)

• 48.46 100 fly (1st, NCAA record)

• 48.94 400 medley relay fly split (1st)

• 2:01.29 200 breast (1st, NCAA record)

• 46.37 400 free relay leadoff (1st, NCAA record)

The 200 IM might be the best swim in NCAA history. Remember, Alex Walsh, who finished third in this race, crushed the national record last year in a dominant win.

The 100 fly win might have been against the best field in any race in NCAA history - Olympic champion, World champion, 5 total women who had been sub-50.

Is this hyperbole? Maybe a little. But it's defensible hyperbole if it is.

Women's DI NCAA Championships

Of course, there was more to this meet than Kate Douglass. Let's start with her teammates. Virginia took 11 wins on the week. Besides KD's 3 individual & 4 relay wins, the Hoos pulled a somewhat surprising win in the 800 free relay on the first night. Aimee Canny (1:42.34), Alex Walsh (1:41.18, fastest in the field), Reilly Tiltmann (1:43.38), and Ella Nelson (1:42.92) put together a 6:49.82 swim to beat Stanford and Texas. Alex Walsh took the 400 IM in a PR 3:57.24. Her and teammate Nelson were the only two women to crack 4:00 - in fact, they were the only 2 under 4:03, with third place Olympic medalist (and former Cavalier) Emma Weyant touching in 4:03.50. Younger sister Gretchen Walsh was almost as dominant as KD in her pair of wins - first breaking the NCAA record by half a second in the 100 back for a 48.26 victory, and then coming within a touch of the hallowed Simone Manual 100 free NCAA record with a 45.61 drubbing of the field.

The only blemish on the younger Walsh's week was a runner-up in the 50 free. In that race, Maggie Mac Neil used her masterful underwater work to take an NCAA record of her own in 20.79. Walsh's 20.85 was "merely" the second-best time of her career, behind her 20.83 from ACCs, which was the fastest ever at that point in time.

The final multi-event individual winner of the week was perhaps a surprise. Alabama's Kensey McMahon staged two big come from behind wins in the distance free races in her last college meet. In the 500, she flipped 5th at the 300, but made her move with a 27.96 next 50 to take the lead by the 350. She didn't give up the lead from there despite hard charges by Wisconsin's Abby Carlson and Texas's Olivia Bray, touching in 4:36.62 for the win. In the 1650, McMahon made her move at the 1400, dropping half a second from her average 50 split in the middle of the race to move past the field for a convincing 15:43.84 win.

The most exciting finish of the meet was the 200 fly on the last day. Virginia's Alex Walsh took the race out like she was out for blood, touching two seconds ahead of anyone at the 100 (50.57!). Texas's Emma Sticklen was hanging at her feet and started to make her move as Walsh began to tighten up at the 125. At the 175 Walsh still looked to hold a commanding lead, but Sticklen used a sensational last underwater and picked up her tempo to touch just ahead of Walsh, 1:49.95 to 1:50.23 - that was a meet record for Sticklen. Her reaction says it all.

The Longhorn women had another win as well. Lydia Jacoby added an NCAA title to her Olympic 100 breast gold, touching out Mona McSharry and teammate Anna Elendt in 57.03, a new best time that makes her the 7th fastest performer ever.

Stanford took the final two wins. Taylor Ruck was a repeat winner in the 200 free, taking the race out fast and holding off Tennessee's Brooklyn Douthwright and Virginia's Aimee Canny in 1:42.36. Freshman Claire Curzan won her first title with a dominant 1:47.64 200 back win ahead of Wisconsin's Phoebe Bacon and Cal's Isabelle Stadden.

At the end of the week, the team standings fell pretty much according to chalk: Virginia's 542 points outpaced runner-up Texas's 415 and Stanford's 333 pretty convincingly. The battle for 4th was a little tighter - Louisville used their sprint free depth to get past NC State, Ohio State, Indiana, and Tennessee for the last podium position.

DIII NCAA Champs

The non-scholarship division also took the stage this week.

The Denison women won just one event, but that event - the 800 free relay, which they won by over six seconds as the only team to put four splits sub-1:50 - showcased the depth especially in freestyle that led them to a decisive championship. From mid-distance up, they put 3 up/1 down in the 200 and 500 and 2 up/1 down in the 1650. Sophomore Taryn Wisner led the way here, with 2nd place finishes in all three events. They also scored multiple women in the 200 and 400 IMs, 100 free and fly, and 200 breast, and placed top 8 in every relay.

Nobody had a clean sweep, but several women doubled up in wins on the week. Kristin Cornish of Johns Hopkins took the distance double over Wisner with 4:48.38/16:29.78 times. Williams's Sophia Verkleeren took the 2IM (1:59.47) and 2back (1:57.66). NYU freshman Kaley McIntyre was a breakout star - she dropped half a second from seed to win the 50 free in 22.78 and a second from seed to win the 200 free by a second and a half in 1:47.44. She also led off the 400 free relay in a 49.35 - a time that would have placed second in the individual 100 free. Kenyon's Jennah Fadely took the breaststroke double in 59.94/2:11.22. She backed up her conference 59.98 100 as one of the few DIII women ever sub-1:00, and used a scintillating 33.79 last 50 to win the 200 in a 3 second PR. Finally, Tufts's Lilly Klinginsmith took the 100 free (49.28) and 100 fly (53.65).

Joining Denison on the podium was Emory, led by sprinters Caroline Maki and Taylor Leone, Kenyon, who also got an event win in the 100 back from Olivia Smith, and Williams.

On the men's side, Day 1 made it look like it was going to be an Emory runaway: Pat Pema won the 500 free and their 200 medley relay broke the NCAA record to stake them to a 30 point lead over Kenyon, but the Lords were not going to go down without a fight.

On Day 2, they ran a streak of three event wins, taking the 200 free relay, 400 IM (Bryan Fitzgerald, 3:49.58), and 100 fly (Marko Krtinic with a meet record 46.51). They closed with a close win in the 400 Medley Relay (3:11.39 over MIT's 3:11.63) and a 25 point lead over Emory.

On Day 3 and 4, Emory unleashed their breaststroke squad. They put 3 up/1 down in both the 100 and 200 including 100 winner Jake Meyer (52.87) and 200 winner Jason Hamilton (1:53.77). After winning the 800 free relay over Kenyon's 6th place finish, the Eagles wouldn't look back from there, ending with a 532-495.5 finish over Kenyon.

The big story of the week outside of the team race was Whitman senior Tanner Filion. DIII has only had a 100 back record under 47 since 2017. Last year, former Ithaca backstroker Jack Wadsworth lowered it to 46.45 and promptly transferred to Arizona State. Runner-up Filion took it from there and blasted a 45.75 this year.

He followed that up with a record 1:41.17 200 back. His 22.91/24.90/26.44/26.92 splits suggest he might still be learning the tactics on that race. Anyway, the dude was 53.4 in the 100 out of high school - talk about a progression there!

We also saw national records from TCNJ's James McChesney in the 200 free (1:34.74, first DIII man sub 1:35), and CMS's Frank Applebaum in the 200 fly (1:43.96, sneaking under his own 1:44.01 from last year).

Next Week Preview:

NCAA Men's DI Champs - Last meet of the 2022-2023 season! Does Cal have their usual NCAA taper on tap? WIll Arizona State continue their rise as the breakout team of the past couple years? Can anybody beat fully-rested Florida sprint relays? And where do Texas (stars but not as much depth as usual) and NC State's (tons of guys, only a couple projected multi-event scorers) questions land them?

Check out the Men's 2023 NCAA Swimming Championships PREDICTION SHOW!

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