UVA vs. Texas + Georgia vs. Florida + Stanford vs. Arkansas + Auburn vs. Indiana vs. Mizzou

COLLEGE SWIMMING ROUNDUP

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🏊‍♀️ SWIMS OF THE WEEK 🏊🏽‍♂️

Lots going on this week, let’s try a Quick Hits today:

• Big dual meet in Charlottesville between Virginia and Texas. They did some fun stuff, one-on-one Super Finals, DJs, lots of hype. Over 1,000 fans showed up, which is pretty great for a fall dual. On the swim side, UVA pretty much dismantled the Longhorns on both sides. Gretchen Walsh starred, compiling 20.95/46.42 frees, 22.54/49.17 backs, and 49.11 100 fly. Those would all have been top 4 at 2023 NCAAs, and she did them in a practice suit. Hard to overstate how great she’s been this year.

• Northwestern transfer Jasmine Nocentini can’t fully replace Kate Douglass for UVA but is doing an admirable job as the Lady Hoos’ #2 sprinter with 21.89/47.82 here, as well as a scary-fast 58.19 100 breast.

• On the longer end of things, Alex Walsh and Ella Nelson both went 2:08 200 breast.

• Men’s meet didn’t have as much in terms of nationally relevant swims, but their 100 IM garnered a few standouts, including four guys under 50 in Texas freshman Nate Germonprez (48.45) and teammate Alec Filipovic (49.99), and UVA’s Tim Connery (48.81) and Noah Nichols (49.06).

• Rivalry meet between Florida and Georgia resulted in big wins by the Gators. Josh Liendo put up some good enSpeedo’d times, 19.30 (18.86 relay)/42.84 sprint frees and a 46.30 100 fly.

• The Gator women stars also came out to play, with Izzy Ivey (22.85 50 free, 52.59 100 back, 53.15 100 fly) and Emma Weyant (1:56.40 200 back, 1:58.13 200 IM) leading the way.

• Georgia men’s long free is still chugging along, as Tomas Koski (1:35.56 200 free) and Jake Magahey (4:21.23 500/8:59.36 1000) took those events over deep Florida lineups.

• The weekend’s best performance besides GWalsh came from Stanford freshman Caroline Bricker. She’s fast showing herself to be one of the most versatile swimmers in the NCAA especially in some of the most grueling events. Against Arkansas she went #1 times in the nation in the 200 breast (2:07.15), 200 fly (1:54.60), and 400 IM (4:05.51).

• Arkansas’s Bella Cothern had a standout meet here as well, with 22.23/49.03 sprints and a 21.69 relay split.

• The Stanford men took on Cal-Santa Barbara, since Arkansas doesn’t have a men’s team. We got a fun brother head-to-head with Rex Maurer taking the 200 in 1:33.88 over brother Luke’s 1:34.09. Rex also popped a 3:44.70 400 IM.

• Matt Fenlon got a PR 500 free here with a 4:19.32, and Stanford’s sprint crew is looking pretty good even without Andrei Minakov as Andres Dupont (20.47/42.65), Raphael Gu (19.72/43.55), and Jonathan Tan (19.73/43.57) put up various top 10 times in the country for the weekend and their 200 free relay went a #4 in the nation for the year 1:18.59 (Gu 19.72/Tan 19.64/Dupont 19.61/L Maurer 19.62).

• We got our first taste of Indiana’s Ahmed Hafnaoui in SCY against Auburn and Mizzou. He went 1:38.69/4:18.62/8:55.74 in the longer frees, the longer two tops on the weekend. I’m not like some predicting sub-4, sub-14 times for him come March, but the Olympic and Worlds champ is definitely the favorite in the mile and one of in the 500.

• Jassen Yep also put up some elite times at this meet in 52.78/1:54.71 breasts.

• On the topic of distance swimming, Ohio State’s Charlie Clark, redshirting this fall but expected to compete in the spring, time trialed a 1000 prior to the Buckeyes’ opener against Virginia Tech, breaking his program record with a 8:47.19.

• D1 mid-major breaststrokers came to play this weekend. On the women’s side, Cincy’s Joleigh Crye (1:01.29), and ECU’s Kaylee Hamblin (1:01.91) popped strong 100 times, while Loyola MD’s Lily Mead (2:15.09), Army’s Aurelie Mingault (2:15.05) and Hamblin (2:15.89) did the same in the 200. On the men’s side, Towson’s Brian Benzing (52.71/1:57.97), IUPUI’s Logan Kelly (53.60/1:58.46), and UMBC’s Daniel Nicusan (54.05/1:59.39) posted strong doubles.

• Looking at D2, the top 3 men’s 1000 swims in the country for the year came from this weekend in the form of UIndy’s NCAA champ in the event Cedric Buessing (9:11.64), Wayne State freshman Khalil Ben Ajmia (9:18.80), and SVSU’s Ben Wainman (9:22.69). Wainman also hit 4:33.59 in the 500 and 15:35.03 in the mile, all of which are PRs as he had what’s gotta be the best meet weekend of his career so far.

• Northern Michigan’s Gabriel Fulconi hit some big times, foremost his 1:49.43 1st in D2 200 IM, but also a 56.22 100 breast and a 44.43 100 free relay split.

• Top sprinter in D2 Lamar Taylor went 19.43/43.07 season bests at the Hendrix Invite, the former time #1 in the country for D2.

• Bloomsberg’s Rylee Wenzel went 24.03/51.86 sprints, the latter #1 on the weekend for D2 by over a second.

• Findlay star Emily Myers-Bentley had herself a weekend with 23.91/1:50.46 frees, 2:05.15 200 fly, and 24.17 fly/50.54 free relay splits. That fly split is particularly nasty, and would have been the 4th fastest split at NCAAs last year in the 200 medley relay.

• D3 is a bit behind ramping up than the rest of the college swimming world, but they’re getting going now. Ella Roberson from MIT is easily the best newcomer for D3 women this year. She went 23.47/51.06 frees, which both would have scored at NCAAs last year. Her high school PRs (23.00/49.67/1:49.54) are all easily A-final caliber already.

• Her teammate Kate Augustyn is one of the best backstrokers in the division. She kicked off her campaign with 57.25/2:02.90 in her specialty.

• JHU’s Kellen Roddy, 2022 NCAA mile champ, opened his season with frankly unimpressive 4:51.38/9:57.28 distance times a couple weeks ago, but looked a ton better at the Thomas Murphy Invite with 1:41.46/4:32.90/15:47.64, the latter two easily best in D3 for the year.

🏊🏼 RELAY OF THE WEEK 🏊‍♀️

Indiana Men’s 400 Free Relay

Indiana lost their top sprinter from last year in Van Mathias, but their depth just keeps them chugging along. They absolutely dismantled Auburn and Mizzou through their entire tri-meet, capped off with the #4 400 free relay in the country for the year. This is a pretty star-studded relay, as Miroslaw and Frankel have Olympic experience and Lee is a relay standout for Singapore in international competition.

Tomer Frankel
43.72
Rafael Miroslaw
42.58
Gavin Wight
43.59
Mikkel Lee
42.79

🏊🏽‍♂️ WEEKEND PREVIEW 🏊🏼

A few interesting meets this coming weekend. The ones I’m most looking forward to following are the Chicago D3 Shootout, featuring top D3 teams Chicago, WashU, Ponoma-Pitzer, and others; and the Drury Invite with top D2 teams Drury and Missouri S&T, plus first year team Rockhurst coached by former Drury assistant Doug Schranck.

Others on the docket: Texas A&M hosts Texas and Georgia Tech. NC State hosts Georgia and Duke. Brown, Princeton, and Dartmouth get the Ivy League season in full gear. D3 powerhouse Emory hosts national-level D2 teams Wingate and Carson-Newman. Denison and Kenyon renew their rivalry. BYU and their early season star Jordan Tiffany take on UNLV’s deep sprint crew.

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