USC Iron Man + Chicago D3 Shootout

COLLEGE SWIMMING ROUNDUP

🏊‍♀️ SWIMS OF THE WEEK 🏊🏽‍♂️

Kryzsztof Chmielewski, Iron Man

Southern Cal took on the Arizona double on Friday and Saturday, and the most impressive thing in both meets to me was Polish freshman Chmielewski’s weekend. He attacked a 1000-500-200 fly + relay lineup again Arizona on Friday and ASU on Saturday. He put up strong times on Friday, but one-upped himself the next day, finishing with 4:18.08/8:47.53 distance frees and a 1:41.20 200 fly. That might be the toughest two days of dual meet racing I’ve seen.

Of course, he wasn’t the only headliner in these meets:

• KC actually took second in the 200 fly against ASU to fellow freshman superstar Ilya Kharun. The kid keeps getting better, hitting 1:40.07 in this race, and a mind-boggling-for-a-dual-meet 19.30 fly split on the 200 medley relay.

• Much was made of a potential 2 fly matchup between those two and Leon Marchand, but Marchand took the breaststroke double instead in 51.96/1:52.70, while also breaking the ASU 100 fly school record (which Kharun first took under 45 earlier this year) with a 44.66.

• USC’s women just keep impressing under Lea Maurer. Hungarian freshman Minna Abraham went three shiny new PRs with 48.65/1:43.35 frees and a 1:57.32 200 IM.

• Caroline Famous joined the PR train on her breakout senior season with 23.93/51.48/1:56.40 backstroke PRs.

• For Arizona, sophomore Ralph Daleiden continues to churn out elite freestyle times. He hit 42.47/1:34.56 at Friday’s meet.

Distance Explosion

In addition to KC’s exploits, some really impressive distance swimming this weekend. Three women put up notable distance doubles, their 1000s marking the top three performances on the year. At the aforementioned ASU/USC meet, Sun Devil Deniz Ertan popped 4:42.01/9:33.07 (#2 nationally). Meanwhile, Texas A&M hosted Texas and Ertan’s previous team Georgia Tech. Longhorn Erica Sullivan went 4:42.91/9:31.77 (#1 in the NCAA), pushed by Aggie sophomore Hayden Miller’s 4:44.22/9:33.45 (#3 ranked).

The weekend for the men featured the #2 and #4 500s on the year as Jake Magahey’s 4:15.07 got the better of James Plage’s 4:15.74 at the UGA/NC St/Duke tri. Meanwhile, GT’s Mert Kilavuz hit a 8:49.57 1000 and NC St’s Lance Norris got a 8:51.60 PR. That’s also #2 and #4 in the NCAA for the season, as Norris’s teammate Owen Lloyd went 8:53.42 for #5.

Let’s also not forget ASU’s Zalan Sarkany, who went 14:23 in the 1500 short course meters at Hungarian Champs. That’s like ~14:30ish in the small pool. He was 8th in the mile last year. Big points for the Sun Devils.

D3 Rising

It’s about the time of the year for Division 3 to start putting up fast times. We’ll get to the biggest D3 meet of the weekend a little later, but there were fast times all over the place for the division:

• Derek Maas was a D1 All-American for Alabama and transferred to NYU for grad school. He swam 54.60/2:01.00 breast and 1:48.11 IMs at the NYU Invite. That’s a team that could have some dangerous relays with Maas joined up with the likes of Leo Han, Ajay Watanakun, and Jaeden Yburan.

• The Emory Invite featured a bunch of good times. Emory sprint backstroke duo Megan Jungers and Penny Celtnieks put up the #1 and #2 100s on the season with 55.40/55.66.

• On the men’s side, Emory’s deep breaststroke group was the biggest contributor to their national championship last year, and looks to be almost as good here. Three guys put up strong double distances in Jake Meyer (53.50/1:59.17), Henri Bonnault (55.36/2:01.47), and Anderson Holcomb (56.47/2:04.58).

• Also, since we’ve highlighted brother-vs-brother matchups two weeks in a row with the Buessings and the Maurers, we’d be remiss not to mention the Thorsen brothers’ (Crow and McKee) 1:50.03 200 IM tie for the win at this meet. Crow is the second-fastest returning 400 IMer in the division, while freshman McKee hit PRs in this event as well as the butterflies (48.69/1:48.87).

• Carnegie Mellon’s DJ Lloyd announced himself as a challenger in the 50 free with a big PR 20.28. That drops .12 from his high school best and around half a second from what he went last year, his freshman year at CMU. That would have just missed scoring at NCAAs by .01 in 2023.

Other Elite Swims

• NC State’s Noah Henderson and Luke Miller tied with 19.18 50 frees for #2 in the nation. Miller, fresh off a two gold medal Pan Ams performance winning the 100 fly and swimming the fly leg on the medley, later popped the #1 SCY 100 fly in the country with a 44.17, while Henderson finished in a not-too-shabby 45.57 behind him. You may remember Luke as the winner of the 50 Kick Challenge we did a couple years ago - he was 27 long course kick with a board!

• Also at this meet, Georgia’s backstroke group came to play. SIU transfer Ruard van Renen blasted a 45.19 in the 100 (to go along with a 46.11 100 fly), while Ian Grum, Sam Powe, and Brad Dunham made a dent in the national rankings in the 200 with 1:40.27/1:41.40/1:41.46 respectively.

• South Carolina had a nice run of PRs in their dual against UNC. Amy Riordan hit 49.59/1:44.31 sprints, the latter a PR. They also are showing a great 2 fly duo, with Nichelle Toh (1:55.59) and Jordan Agliano (1:55.75) hitting PRs in that event.

• Texas’s Grace Cooper PRd her 50 free with a 21.83. Sprint free was the Longhorn’s weakest discipline in their 2022 and 2023 NCAA runner-up campaigns, and a great season from Cooper would help remedy that as they try to make another run against the UVA juggernaut.

• At the same meet, A&M’s Miranda Grana hit some backstroke PRs with 51.87/1:53.30.

• The annual Cal/Stanford men’s Triple Distance meet was this weekend. Stroke sweeps came from Cardinal men Aaron Sequeira in the backstrokes (22.34/47.67/1:43.36) and Rex Maurer in the distance frees (1:38.44/4:22.72/9:02.75), and Golden Bear Destin Lasco in the IMs (51.13/1:49.44/3:55.26). Rafael Gu impressed in beating Dare Rose in the 50 and 100 flys to take the overall win in that stroke (21.12/46.71/1:47.36 over 21.17/48.15/1:46.71 for Rose) and freshman Henry McFadden won the 100 and 200 to take the sprint free total (20.45/43.35/1:35.51) over Cal stars Alexy and Seeliger.

• A head-to-head between two of the three fastest returning men’s 100 breaststrokers in D2, as Drury’s defending champ Davi Mourao got the better of Missouri S&T’s B final champ Noah Clancy, 55.68-56.08. Freshman from Rockhurst’s first year team Mohammad Nada came in close behind in 56.45 and also won the 200 in 2:01.97.

• Some good performances from Rockhurst men overall, especially for a first year team, as they hit some suited swims pre-taper meet. They had some strong medley relays, with their 400 coming right behind Drury in 3:19.95 (Ali Usama 50.62/Nada 54.73/Alex Adum 49.26/Adam Hamdy 45.34) and finished just behind Drury and S&T in the 200 in 1:33.19 (Usama 24.30/Nada 25.50/Adum 22.73/Hamdy 20.66).

• Also from this Drury Invite, Drury freshman Ivan Adamchuk went the #1 200 back in the division with a 1:45.14, while sophomore Alejandro Villarejo went the #2 200 fly with a 1:47.45.

🏊🏼 RELAY OF THE WEEK 🏊‍♀️

Southern Cal Women’s 200 Medley Relay

Yeah, I know, we’ve been talking about this team a bunch this season. But it really is impressive the turnaround they’ve made this year. This weekend, they popped a 1:35.37 200 MR that’s #2 in the country behind Virginia.

• Caroline Famous 23.93

• Kaitlyn Dobler 26.42

• Anicka Delgado 23.01

• Vasilissa Buinaia 22.01

🏊🏽‍♂️ MEET OF THE WEEK 🏊🏼

Chicago D3 Shootout

This is D3’s answer to the SMU Invite with the one-swimmer-per-team-per-heat game and we got a similar national leaderboard shuffle here as we do for D1 after SMU. A snippet of some of the best swims:

• Pomona-Pitzer’s Larry Yu was a versatile whirlwind, taking the 200 breast (2:01.29) and the IMs (1:48.56/3:55.43) while contributing ace relay splits in the 8 free relay (1:39.24) and 400 medley relay (48.90 back).

• Teammate Alex Turvey went the nation’s #2 time in the 50 free (23.54) and #1 times in the 100 free (50.95) and 100 fly (55.27).

• Right behind her in the 100 fly came national #2 Hope’s Greta Gidley (55.63) and Pomona-Pitzer’s Abby Smith (55.65).

• WashU’s Alex McCormick is the second fastest D3 returner in the 200 back. He won his specialty stroke double in 48.43/1:46.06.

• Neely Burns from Trinity went a three-pack of nation leaders, 2:17.82 200 breast and 2:04.40/4:21.40 IMs.

• Hosts UChicago have a 200 free duo to watch, with 2023 NCAA fourth place finisher Karen Zhao (1:50.33) and Annabel Olivo (1:51.63) sitting 1-2 in the country.

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