| | | COLLEGE SWIMMING ROUNDUP | | | 🏊♀️ SWIMS OF THE WEEK 🏊🏽♂️ | | Minnesota Invite | A little smaller affair than usual, but still some fast swimming here led by Cal. The Golden Bears’ backstroke stars as usual stole the show here: Destin Lasco overall swam better than his performance last year, with 20.53/44.28/1:38.34 backstrokes, a 1:40.16 200 IM, and 18.94/41.26/1:33.06 free relay splits, while Isabelle Stadden swam the same lineup, hitting 24.46/50.26/1:49.21 backs, 1:57.94 IM, and 21.92/47.63/1:45.74 free relay splits. Most notably, that 200 back for her is the top-ranked swim on the season by over a second. | The Cal men split up some relays as they typically do for this meet, resulting in a triplet of eye-popping 400 free relays - 2:48.55, 2:48.88, and 2:51.12 to sweep top 3 at the meet. Besides Lasco’s 41.26, other notable splits came from Gabriel Jett (41.86), Jack Alexy (41.56 leadoff - he bettered that with a 41.41 individual), and Liam Bell (41.98). Those fastest four legs would add up to a 2:46.66, which would be third in the nation less than a tenth behind ASU and Tennessee. | Other notables on the weekend: | Arizona’s Ralph Daleiden didn’t swim any individual events, but hit some relays and time trials, ending up with PRs of 19.53/42.00/1:32.43 frees - the 100 a new school record. Megan Van Berkom popped some nationals-worthy swims for the host Golden Gophers. She hit a PR 4:42.63 500 free as well as 1:54.78 200 fly and 4:04.36 400 IM. Pitt’s Sophie Yendell led the Panthers with 22.03/50.25 sprints and a PR 52.08 100 fly. Julia Heimstead was everywhere for the Arizona women, topping out at 22.41/48.54/1:45.43 frees and 51.61/1:55.14 flys. Breaststroke was thought to be weakness for the Cal women this year, but they have a couple women stepping up in the discipline. Alicia Henry went PRs of 59.62/2:08.84, while Jade Neser won the 100 in 59.47. Dare Rose is continuing his yearlong breakout. He PRd his 200 fly (1:39.76) to compliment a 44.98 100 fly win. Harvard’s Will Grant has been an NCAA relay guy, but will be looking to make it individually here - he dipped under 1:41 in the 200 back for the first time to finish behind Lasco in 1:40.68, adding a 1:44.26 200 IM PR and a 45.95 100 back while also playing breaststroker on the medley relays.
| | Denison Invite | This was a fun one, with 2023 D2 and D3 men’s champs Indy and Emory and D3 women’s champs Denison, runners-up Emory, and D2 women’s runner-up Indy duking it out. | The swim of the weekend came from Indy’s Celina Schmidt. She blasted a 3 second PR in the 200 breast, her 2:11.07 giving her a whopping 3 second lead on the rest of D2 thus far this season. She went PRs in her other events as well - a 1:00.94 100 breast and a 2:01.01 200 IM. | On the men’s side, Cedric Buessing was all over the place for the Greyhounds. The IM/backstroke/distance guy went 1:46.47/3:45.67 IMs, 22.96/49.05/1:43.37 backs, and a 1:37.08 200 free. | Breaststroke was a highlight on the men’s side as well, with Emory’s unparalleled stroke group shining as usual. Jake Meyer led the way here, taking the double distance in 52.55/1:55.02. Supporting him was Henri Bonnault (53.69/1:59.11) and Liyang Sun (53.97). | Denison’s women’s freestyle depth led them to the D3 team title last year, and that depth helped them post top-3 ranked relays in all three free relays, headlined with a nation-leading 7:24.46 800 free relay (Esme Wright 1:50.02/Annie Pfeufer 1:51.29/Quinn Brown 1:52.45/Emily Harris 1:50.70). | Freestyle depth was the name of the game for the Indy men’s NCAA championship last year as well, and that showed through in their #2 ranked 1:18.84 200 free relay (Joao Silva 19.80/Diego Mas 19.76/Oskar Sawicki 19.51/Bartosz Mielniczuk 19.77), even with team-fastest split Aqueel Joseph (19.21) on the B relay. | | More D2/D3 Speed | Several other top D2 and D3 teams were in action for their midseason rest meets. At the MIT Invite the big names were the host Engineers and Tufts. Some highlights: | MIT star freshman Ella Roberson is starting to make some noise. She took the sprint frees, topping out at 23.05/50.12/1:50.24. She was also the catalyst for some fantastic relays for the Engineers. Perhaps the best of the lot was a 3:43.80 400 medley relay (Kate Augustyn 55.10/Edenna Chen 1:01.36/Kailey Simons 56.56/Roberson 50.78), but she also blasted a 22.13 200 free relay anchor. The MIT men were led by Tobe Obochi (19.89/43.49 sprints with 19.09/43.03 relay anchors) and Jaden Luo (1:37.24 200 free, 1:47.88 200 IM). Eric Lundgren was a strong performer for the Tufts men, taking the backstroke double (48.61/1:46.55), while fifth year Peter Labarge was just behind Obochi in the sprints (19.95/44.71).
| Calvin University also hosted their annual winter invite. In addition to the hosts, northern D2 stalwarts GVSU, Findlay, and Northern Michigan were in attendance. The tale of the tape here: | 2023 D2 mile champ Eric Hieber from GVSU is going to another level. He went 1:36.24/4:19.63/15:08.97 frees, the 500 his first time delving under the 4:20 mark. Findlay’s Tim Stollings, a former 100 fly champ himself, also put together a heck of a weekend, going 20.07 free, 21.45/46.18 backs (the latter a PR), and 46.79 100 fly. Calvin’s Julien Camy finished just behind Stollings in the 100 fly in 46.85, a time which would have taken 4th at 2023 D3 NCAAs. He’s hacked over a second off his PR in the event thus far this year. Swim of the weekend on the women’s side was Calvin’s #1-ranked 3:23.85 400 free relay. That relay featured a balanced team of Isabella Gable (50.93), Maggie Farrell (51.07), Emma Merkel (51.74) and Sydney Sonday (50.11). GVSU’s Lucy Hedley continued her strong campaign, going 23.34/50.81/1:50.07 to sweep the sprint frees.
| Other various strong lower-divisions swims from the weekend: | Kellen Roddy from Johns Hopkins hit some strong distance times to put himself on top of the division - 4:25.23/15:20.93. Not to bury the lede, but Claremont-Mudd-Scripps took on Pomona-Pitzer in a dual and Frank Appelbaum broke his own D3 200 fly record with a 1:43.87. He also added a 47.41 in the 100. P-P’s Larry Yu was his usual versatile self at this dual - 22.74/48.64/1:48.04 backs, 54.29 breast, and 1:47.75 200 IM made up his day - all but the 50 back PRs. Yu’s teammate on the women’s side Alex Turvey also had herself a day with three season bests of 23.24/50.72 free and a #1 national ranked 54.29 100 fly. 200 free D3 record holder James McChesney was strong at his team’s invite, hitting 20.14/44.05/1:37.84/4:31.96 frees and 48.16/1:49.70 flys. Three other strong performances by D3 men’s sprinters in various meets - RIT’s Mike Atanasoff went a 20.24 50, Saint Mary’s Luke Schwenk went 20.33/44.51 with a 19.77 relay split, and Ithaca’s James Collishaw 20.39/44.62.
| | Mid-Major Miscellany | Some D1 mid-majors were also in action, with good times scattered all over the nation: | UMBC’s Oliver Gassman was a butterfly force at the Bucknell Invite, nipping his PR in the 100 fly with a 46.30, and also featuring a 20.47 50 fly relay spilt. Abby Daniel played the same role for the Akron women at their Zippy Invite, knocking three tenths off her 100 fly PR for a 51.31 (the fastest in the nation on the weekend), adding a 1:55.87 200 fly PR, 1:56.78 200 IM, and 22.06/48.74/1:48.55 free relay splits. Meanwhile Princeton’s Eleanor Sun had the fastest 200 IM on the weekend with a 1:56.26 two and a half second PR at the Big Al Invite - she also hit PRs in the longer IM (4:06.07) and 200 back (1:56.26). Also at Big Al, three Penn women put up mile times that will put them in or near the running for NCAA invites - last year’s 10th place finisher Anna Kalandadze hit a 15:54.93, while Anna Moehn went a PR 16:18.49 and Sydney Bergstrom went 16:21.85 Some fireworks on the men’s side too - host Princeton’s Mitchell Schott went a 1:33.97 200 free to just miss his PR by .03, while Denver’s Dylan Wright hit a massive two second PR with a 1:41.80 200 back. Oakland’s Christian Bart has been knocking on NCAA qualification in the 100 breast for the past few years. He knocked a hundredth off his PR for a 51.90 for the fastest 100 breast on the weekend, while in the same race Keiser’s Noel De Geus smashed his own NAIA national record with a 52.14. He’d later also break the NAIA record in the 200 breast with a 1:54.65. Miami-OH’s Nicole Maier, perhaps the best overall D1 Mid-Major swimmer out there, had a notable meet at her team’s hosted invite. She swam a bunch of different stuff as she usually does - the 2023 400 IM B final champ PRd her 100 free with a 47.97 and also blasted a 21.78 50 free relay split.
| | 🏊🏽♂️ Weekend Preview 🏊🏼 | | A couple more fast meets on the docket here - let’s see what Henderson State’s mighty sprint squads can pull out at the Delta State Christmas Invite. Meanwhile in D3, the Williams/Tufts/WPI/Wesleyan quad meet usually yields some champs-quality times. Also, the Army-Navy dual is always a treat. | | Enjoying the College Swimming Roundup? | Like this email? | | |
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