COLLEGE SWIMMING ROUNDUP

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🏊‍♀️ SWIMS OF THE WEEK 🏊🏽‍♂️

Minnesota Invite Fireworks - As is customary this time of year, some of the best D1 teams in the nation met at the Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center last week. Relay Wednesday was all the Texas women, with the Longhorns putting up the third best 200 medley relay (1:34.46) and second best 800 free relay (6:59.67) in the country. We were also treated to a couple of the fastest men's 800 free relay anchors in history, with Carson Foster bringing the Texas men home in 1:30.75 and Destin Lasco anchoring Cal in just a tick slower 1:30.79. As a matter of fact, as far as we can find those are the 3rd and 5th fastest anchors ever in this relay.

Thursday brought the formidable Texas mid-d and distance groups into the spotlight - Erica Sullivan's 4:39.26 500 is the second fastest time in the country, while the Longhorn men submitted 2 4:10s (Carson Foster and David Johnston), 2 4:14s (Coby Carrozza and freshman Alec Enyeart who continues to drop large chunks of time), and a 4:15 (Luke Hobson). It was also a day for big breakout swims from some solid swimmers - Minnesota's Kaiser Neverman backed up his surprise gutsy 1:33.64 800 free relay split by breaking the 6 year old Golden Gopher 200 IM school record with a 1:43.91 to finish behind only NCAA 2IM runner-up Lasco and A-finalist Jake Foster, and Arizona senior Ryan Perham dropped .3 on his 50 free to finish behind only Bjoern Seeliger (18.87) with a 19.39.

Days Three and Four showcased strong stroke groups. Texas women's butterfly threesome is a fearsome thing to watch - Kelly Pash (51.01/1:51.96), Emma Sticklen (50.91/1:54.21), and Dakota Luther (52.27/1:52.58) are going to get some huge points in March. Meanwhile, Cal's backstroke group lost A finalists Daniel Carr and Bryce Mefford but just keeps chugging along. Lasco (44.88/1:39.09) put down the first sub-45 100 back in the nation, while the Golden Bears now have 5 guys sub-47 and 5 sub-1:44. We were also treated to what might be the most ridiculous splitting of an elite 200 free time that we've ever seen, courtesy of Gabriel Jett (46.10/46.31).

All in all, I'm not sure we learned much from the favorites at this meet that we didn't already know - Cal men are the favorites come March. Texas women might have the firepower to challenge Virginia and Stanford. Texas men are going to score bunches of middle distance and IM points but have some glaring holes, though they weren't firing on all cylinders - Caspar Corbeau was in the Netherlands swimming LCM and the Fosters + David Johnston swimming reduced schedules with Worlds in a couple weeks.

Utah, Road Trippin’ – Utah took a cross-country trip to the Big Al Invite at Princeton and left town with some strong times. Andrei Ungur went 45.27/1:42.51 backstrokes (the 100 a top-5 NCAA time), while Jaek Horner went 51.89/1:53.85 breasts with a 1:45.08 IM. The two combined with JP Hynes and Finn O’Haimhirgin for a 1:24.58 200 medley relay (on 21.75/23.29/20.54/19.00 splits) and with Marko Kovacic and O’Haimhirgin for a 3:07.50 400 medley relay. Impressive especially given the travel and time changes.

Some of the best swimming this weekend came from the mid-major and smaller division invites. Here’s some division-by-division recaps:

D1 Mid-Majors

• Nicole Maier of Miami (OH) might have had the overall meet of the weekend - she put up strong times across a wide spectrum of distances and strokes: She hit 22.80/48.46/1:45.27/4:43.44 frees with 21.88/48.14 relay anchors, a 1:57.19 200 fly, and 2:00.03/4:10.54 IMs.

• Akron hosted the Zippy Invite, and their star Madelyn Gatrall put up NCAA scoring level times of 24.42/51.84/1:53.50 backstrokes while contributing 22.52/49.33 free relay leadoffs.

• Penn was also at the Zippy Invite. As expected, National Teamer Matt Fallon took the breaststrokes in 52.00/1:50.28, the latter a nation leader by almost a second, with a 200 IM PR of 1:43.63 (highlighted by a 27.83 breaststroke split!) to boot. Anna Kalandadze led the Quaker women with 4:42.45/16:07.95 in the distance frees.

• Staying in the Ivy League, Brown's Jack Kelly popped 52.61/1:52.93 breaststrokes at the Bruno Invite, while Princeton looked poised to take advantage of Harvard's big graduations at the Big Al Invite - Raunak Khosla did his thing with 1:42.94/3:44.88 IMs and a 1:43.42 200 fly, plus their distance group looked strong with Dylan Porges winning the 500 in 4:19.53 just ahead of Columbia freshman Adam Wu's 4:19.80.

Division 2

• The Calvin Invite was where the best of the D2 action was last weekend. Findlay was on fire in the men's relays with 1:19.37/2:56.12 in the frees and 1:25.38/3:09.73 in the medleys. The 200 MR was the most impressive, with balanced 21.47/23.60/20.73/19.58 splits that would play in almost any D1 conference meet. Tim Stollings put up a 19.84 free and 46.95/47.31 in the 100 fly and back, while Daniel Garcia went 51.93/1:55.94 breasts and a 1:45.86 IM - that 100 breast scaring the national record (a 51.63 by NSU's Anton Lobonov) and a best time by 1.3 seconds. Grand Valley State showed some freestyle prowess - freshman Matt Bosch swam 43.99/1:35.71 in the long sprints, their 500 group put up NCAA scoring worthy times with Eric Hieber's 4:23.55, Jon Katzenbach's 4:24.88, and Austin Millard's 4:27.97, and Lucy Hedley went 1:50.44/4:54.87 to lead the women.

• We've mentioned St. Cloud State's national champion contenders several times before, but it looks like they may have some strong relay action going on too. While Abe Townley's 19.69 50 free and Raf Hendricks's 1:44.23 200 back stole the show at the Rochester Invite, the hosts also put down 1:19.48/2:58.28 free and 1:27.35 medley relays. Townley had a lot of variance in his swims - that 19.69 was a prelims swim, with 19.89 in finals and 20.25 leading off the relay, but when he clicks, he's one of the best pure sprinters in D2.

• The SCAD Invite in Savannah, Georgia had some great swims on the women's side. Wingate's Kate Agger popped some of the fastest distance times in D2 with 4:53.54/16:47.25, while Lynn's Luna Mertins was an all-purpose weapon with 54.47/1:57.78 backs, 53.92 fly, and 2:04.29 IM.

Division III

• The Denison Invite brought together top D3 teams Denison, Emory, WashU, and Johns Hopkins. Emory's sprint duo Taylor Leone and Caroline Maki put up nation leading times (Leone 54.27 100 fly, Maki 50.01 100 free), while both cracking the top 3 in the 50 free (Leone 22.93, Maki 23.00) - no surprise that Emory now has the top times in the nation in every relay but the 800 free relay. For the men, Pat Pema scared the national record in the 200 free (1:35.92, record 1:35.52 from Jamie Lovette) and also put down a nation-leading 500 (4:22.82). The Eagles, alma mater of Olympian Andrew Wilson, seem to make breaststrokers by the dozen - they leave the weekend with 4 of the top 8 100 breaststrokers and 4 of the top 6 in the 200, led by Jake Meyer (53.23/1:56.19) and Jason Hamilton (53.63/1:54.74).

• At the MIT Invite, the host's Adam Janicki dipped under 47/1:45 for the first time in the backstrokes with 46.99/1:44.70 while Kate Augustyn's 1:59.35 200 back leads D3.

• NYU freshman Leo Han had a nice breakout meet at the Bruno Invite, going PRs nearly every time he hit the water with 48.61/1:46.92 backstrokes, 47.93 fly, and 1:50.77 IM.

🏊🏼 RELAY(S) OF THE WEEK 🏊‍♀️

Calvin Knights Men's 200 Free Relay - 1:19.44

• Noah Holstege - 19.68

• Jacob Heeres - 19.92

• Forrest Peterson - 20.13

• Corey Campbell - 19.71

The Knights' relay is the first in D3 to break the 1:20 mark this year - the closest team behind them is Emory almost a second back. The time would have also placed second at 2022 NCAAs behind champion MIT. Holstege, Heeres, and Peterson were all mainstays on this relay for the NCAA 6th place-finishing relay last year, but the best they put together with graduated jack-of-all-trades Julian Iturbe was a 1:20.14. Here, Holstege dipped under 20 for only the second time in his career, and backed it up with a 19.66 win in the individual - a nation leading time by almost half a second and the only person in D3 under 20 right now. Anchor Corey Campbell, an athletic 5'7" sprinter's-sprinter, was a flat-start best 20.74 prior to the meet.

🏊🏽‍♂️ MEET OF THE WEEK 🏊🏼

Army Snaps 31 Year Losing Streak, Beats Navy

Everybody loves a rivalry meet, and this one's the daddy of them all. While the women's meet had some great swims - Army got program records from Megan Cole (22.59 50 free) and Aurelie Migault (1:00.92 100 breast), while Navy's Cameron Horner went 1:47.47/4:52.13 frees and Caroline Irwin went 53.13/1:57.71 flys - this meet is Meet of the Week because the Army men broke a 31-year Navy winning streak, and did it to the tune of a 189-111 thrashing.

Army swept the freestyles - Owen Harlow broke program records in the 50 (19.43) and 100 (43.19), Sean Dwyer did the same in the 200 (1:35.75), Wes Tate also went under the 200 free record as well as winning the 500 (4:21.31), and freshman Bryce Barrieault took the 1000 record by less than half a second for his first time under 9 minutes (8:59.40). The Golden Knights had a field day with their record book besides that, with the 100/200 backs, 200 breast, and 400 free relay record also going down.

Navy still put up their best effort through the end of the meet, with the final 400 free relay perhaps the best race of the day as Army rode a Harlow 42.97 third split and held off a hard charging Everett Andrew anchor to ice the meet win (and a new conference record), 2:54.68 to 2:54.72.

🏊🏽‍♂️ WEEKEND PREVIEW 🏊🏼

Slowing down for the semester quickly here, but still one high-level midseason invite this weekend.

Delta State hosts their midseason invite this week. The Statesmen are typically a player at the big meet in March, but the most interesting thing at this meet is the Henderson State men's sprint relays - World Championships sprinter Lammy Taylor and Grand Canyon transfer Jack Armstrong make up perhaps the best sprint duo in D2, and their supporting cast can back them up, as well.

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