College Swimming Roundup: UVA vs. Florida + The Guiliano Train + Tampa Relay

COLLEGE SWIMMING ROUNDUP

🏊‍♀️ SWIMS OF THE WEEK 🏊🏽‍♂️

Southern Cal on the Upswing

We saw a peek of this at the SMU Classic last week. USC kept the momentum going at their home invite this weekend. Nowhere was that clearer than their women’s 400 medley relay to open the meet. Caroline Famous dropped a PR 51.63 leadoff to propel Kaitlyn Dobler (57.69), Anicka Delgado (51.87) and Vasilissa Buinaia (47.14) to a 3:28.33 that improves on their A cut from last week and is over a second faster than USC went at any point last year - in fact, that time would have placed 7th at 2023 NCAAs. And that’s with Dobler capable of a split a second faster than what she went here.

Other swims of note at this meet:

• Polish freshman Kryzysztof Chmielewski (just gonna call him KC from now on) ripped a 14:41.62 mile. That’ll easily guarantee him an NCAA spot. Some context: Through this weekend last year, nobody had been faster than 15:29, and only Victor Johannson’s 14:39 was faster through 2022 midseason invites.

• Fellow freshman Minna Abraham (she of the 1:43 200 free leadoff last weekend) is showing herself to be a versatile weapon. She compiled 22.44/48.92/4:41.74 frees, and added a 4:11.77 400 IM win.

• Winner in that 500 was resurgent sophomore Claire Tuggle. After a few down years in late high school, she went a couple best times for Virginia last year and looks to be settling in at USC after a summer transfer. She swam strong 48.94/1:45.50/4:39.16 frees and added somewhat surprising 1:01.94/2:15.70 breaststroke exhibition swims.

• Some swimmers to watch from the mid-major ranks. Hawai’i’s Mario Surkovic was a relay monster, leading off the 200 free relay in 20.18 and adding 19.59/42.79 anchor splits in the medley relays. UCSD’s Andrija Petkovic had a breakout CSCAA Invite at the end of last season. He went 20.20/43.98/1:37.57 frees here, plus a 22.16 50 back relay leadoff.

The Guiliano Train Keeps Rolling

The dude just keeps getting better. After two college seasons of improving in nearly every swim at every taper meet (seriously, I think the only time he didn’t PR in a conference/NCAA swim was the 2 free at last year’s NCAAs and he still won the consols there!), Chris Guiliano made his international team debut in the 100 free and 4 free relay at Worlds, and it looks like he ain’t resting on his laurels. The now-junior went 19.64/42.86 against Purdue (the latter the first sub-43 this year outside of the ASU boys and D2 Jack Armstrong) and added an 18.86 200 medley relay anchor. That medley relay was also notable as fellow NCAA scorer Tommy Janton (21.82), Tyler Christianson (24.95), Carson Wilburn (20.58) and Guiliano teamed up for a strong 1:26.21, behind only Florida and Cal on the weekend.

Pittsburgh Visits the West Coast 

The Panthers took the Bay Area tour over the weekend, hitting Stanford and Friday and Cal on Saturday for both of those teams’ dual meet debuts. The home teams won both meets handily, with some notable swims throughout:

• Stanford’s Rex Maurer made his college debut, going 21.93/47.09 backs, very close to his best times there, and adding a 4:19.45 500 free. He was also a part of what looks like a freshman-versus-all 400 free relay race as fellow first years Henry McFadden (43.91), Jonathan Tan (43.21), Ethan Harrington (44.83), and Maurer (43.78) compiled to 3:55.73 but were beaten out by the older team of Rafael Gu (43.73), Avery Voss (44.45), Andres Dupont (43.09), and Rex’s brother Luke Maurer (43.75).

• Tan also added 19.65/43.35 sprints, important swims for the Cardinal given the missing Andrei Minakov.

• Pitt’s best performer on the weekend was Jerry Chen, who went 54.03/1:57.83 against Cal. Senior but newcomer Max Matteazzi added a 1:47.95 200 IM - he’s a 1:56/4:11 IMer in SCM.

• Stanford women are definitely hurting from prior years, but freshmen Caroline Bricker and Lucy Thomas had great debuts. Bricker won the 200 fly (1:55.96) and 500 free (4:53.84), while Thomas took the 50 free (22.54), 200 breast (2:14.77), and added a 26.98 200 MR breast split.

• For Cal, Isabelle Stadden continues to lead for the Golden Bears - she went 24.65/52.71 backs and a 1:58.51 200 IM. She finished 2nd in that IM to Lea Polonsky’s 1:57.98 - Polonsky also took on an ironman-esque schedule with the 200 fly (1:57.51) and 200 back (1:59.23 PR).

Other Elite Swims

• BYU’s Jordan Tiffany ripped the second sub-46 100 fly of the year (behind Ilya Kharun) with a 45.86 swim against TCU. He added a 44.05 100 free, and a 47.12 100 back.

• A couple notable times out of the TCU women in this one - Olivia Rhodes went a 22.78 50 free, while Nina Vadovicova added 1:00.75/2:11.30 breaststrokes.

• Another transfer, SMU’s Jack Hoagland (formerly of Notre Dame) also broke a barrier for the first time this year - his 8:55.63 1000 against Cincy and Oklahoma Christian the first sub-9 of the year.

• Still on the subject of transfers, Nova Southeastern’s Inigo Marina (formerly of NAIA St. Thomas) went 54.20/2:00.83 breaststrokes. He'll be in the mix for D2 titles this season.

• Northwestern's Kevin Houseman and Miami-OH's Henju Duvenhage had a nice 100 breast matchup, with Houseman getting the upper hand 53.42-53.96. That's a PR for Duvenhage, though, who's narrowly missed NCAA qualifying the past couple years in the 2 fly and 2 IM.

• Also from this meet, Xavier transfer Andrew Martin hit a 9:04.24 1000. He seems to be a better 200-500 guy than true long distance so we'll see what strides he's made there. Northwestern's last great distance swimmer (and in fact their only swimmer to crack 15:00) was Olympian and open water star Jordan Wilimovsky, and only Wilimovsky, Connor LaMastra, and Eric Nilsson have broken 4:20 for the Wildcats - Martin’s bests are 4:18.88/15:04.12 at last year’s Big East Champs.

• And to close out this dual, perhaps the best mid-major woman in the nation, Nicole Maier, went 1:46.38 2 free and 4:14.92 4 IM, with 22.28/47.97 free relay splits.

• And maybe the best mid-major women’s team in the nation, Akron, popped several good swims at their home invite. Maddy Gatrall and Weronicka Gorecka led off their 400 medley relays in 52.42/52.94 and Rebecca Reid came around a half second off her 200 IM PR with a 2:00.15 meet record.

• On the men’s side from this meet, Xavier sophomore Aiden Leamer is coming off a strong summer long course season that saw him PR his flys by over a second each (54.47/2:05.23), and he looks to be continuing that momentum, coming within .03 of his 100 fly PR with a 48.11. He also split 21.89/47.74 fly on the relays.

🏊🏼 RELAY OF THE WEEK 🏊‍♀️

Tampa Men 400 Medley Relays

Last year the Tampa men racked up the points in the middle-distance frees thanks in part to several fantastic transfers - 5th year Hayden Curley, and juniors Santi Corredor and Caleb Brandon. This year they’ve picked up some more transfers on the sprintier end of things. Adrian Aguilar is a fly/free guy, Ian Cooper a back/free guy, and Blake Moran a pure sprinter, all from Florida State, while Richard Polasek is an ace breaststroker from Davenport. They unleashed this gang at the NSU Shark Invite, resulting in this 400 medley relay result in a field that included two other D2-finals-worthy teams in NSU and FSC:

That kinda depth is almost unheard of in D2, besides some of Queen’s dynasty teams before they went to D1 and maybe some early 2010s Drury teams.

🏊🏽‍♂️ MEET OF THE WEEK 🏊🏼

Virginia at Florida

First dual meet matchup of 2023 top-10 teams from last year on the women’s side as last year’s #1 Virginia visited 2023 #9 Florida. The Lady Hoos took a solid win 164-136, but the Gators look to be much more well-rounded than they have in a bit.

As will be typical for the rest of this season, the Walsh sisters starred. Older sister Alex took the 100 fly (51.87) and 100 breast (59.37), both #2 in the country thus far this season, while younger sister Gretchen swam the fastest 100 free dual meet time in history (46.90) and also won the 100 back (50.29). The two teamed up in a pair of relays, with GWalsh (23.50), Northwestern transfer Jasmine Nocentini (26.69), AWalsh (23.25), and Maxine Parker (22.45) compiling a 1:35.89 200 medley relay and GWalsh (46.90), AWalsh (48.87), Aimee Canny (48.74), and Zoe Skirboll (50.22) taking the 400 free relay in 3:14.73.

Both Walsh sisters got the better of Florida freshman, Olympic medalist, and World Junior Record holder Bella Sims in an event each, but that doesn’t mean Sims had a bad meet - she went 25.35/51.79/1:52.49 backs, 52.09 100 fly, and a 47.99 anchor in Florida’s strong 3:15.80 400 free relay with Izzy Ivey (49.85), Ekatarina Nikonova (50.16), and Micayla Cronk (48.07).

Other strong swims included UVA freshman Tess Howley notching a 1:54.75 200 fly, and Florida’s Emma Weyant, a 2022 transfer from UVA herself, looking resurgent with a 4:39.22 500 free and 4:07.51 400 IM - the IM sits top in the country thus far, while the 500 is just a couple hundredths behind USC’s Tuggle from this weekend.

The men’s side was more of a romp for Florida, 202-93. Josh Liendo starred as usual - 19.43/43.24 sprint frees and 46.99 100 fly with a 20.70 50 fly relay split made up his day. The Gators also flexed their typical longer freestyle muscles, with Jake Mitchell popping 1:35.06/4:21.35 in the 200/500 and a mess of 1000 guys taking 1-5 led by Eric Brown (9:04.88) and a three-pack of freshman (Andrew Taylor/9:05.14, Josh Parent/9:14.38, Bobby Dinunzio/9:17.50). Mason Laur was another big piece in the Gator’s win. The IMer won his specialty with a 3:49.64 400 IM and swam a strong 1:44.14 200 fly.

Cavalier highlights were Matt Brownstead (19.82/43.54 sprints) and a 2:55.38 400 free relay (Brownstead 43.81/Connor Boyle 43.63/Sebastian Sergile 43.91/Tim Connery 44.03).

🏊🏽‍♂️ WEEKEND PREVIEW 🏊🏼

Big one this week is NC State visiting Arizona State. Two really heavy hitters on the men’s side, both with podium aspirations come March. ASU is a pretty well known factor at this point with Marchand, Kos, Kharun, et al, while NC State will be replacing a number of key contributors from last year with a strong freshman class and some redshirts returning.

Also on the docket: Michigan and Arizona visit Wisconsin for a two day affair. Mizzou visits Alabama for an SEC showdown. Minnesota has to be on a bit of upset alert on a trip to Dallas to face SMU. 2023 D2 #1 men and #2 women UIndy open their campaigns against Grand Valley State. Florida State visits Atlanta for a Thursday dual against Georgia Tech, then heads back to Tallahassee to face some in-state directional schools in Florida Southern, West Florida, and North Florida. Perennial D3 contender Kenyon takes on Cincinnati.

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