The summer of 2011 will feature a huge meet in the FINA World Championships, but that doesn’t mean it’s too soon to begin looking at the 2012 NCAA season. Over the next few months, we will count down the top 12 teams from last year’s NCAA Championships, along with a few teams that we expect to break through, until we finsh with the two defending National Champions from Berkeley. To keep track of all of our season previews, we’ve added a link in the menubar, just click “College Previews” at the top of the page.
Key Additions: Abby Duncan (breaststroke), Megan Fonteno (Mid-D/Fly), Erica Belcher (backstroke), Sarah Peterson (mid-D/IM)
Key Losses: Caitlin Geary (11 NCAA Points, 2 NCAA Relays), Micah Lawrence (1 NCAA Prelims Relay), Micah Martindale (1 NCAA Relay)
2010-2011 Recap: By far, the highlight of the 2011 season for the Auburn women was Anna Vanderpool-Wallace. At the SEC Championships, she swam the two fastest 100 freestyles in swimming history (twin 46.81’s from prelims and finals), which she matched with the third-best-ever 50 free (21.34). She didn’t match those lofty targets at NCAA’s, but still brought home double sprint gold for the first two NCAA Titles in the history of the Auburn women’s program (which is almost hard to believe).
By meet’s end, combined with a 46.82 400 free relay leadoff, she had four of the five best 100 freestyles ever, with only a single swim from Natalie Coughlin able to interrupt her dominance.
Thanks to that relay leadoff, Auburn took 2nd in the women’s 400 free relay, which was only bettered by an American Record from the Georgia women. Altogether, the Auburn women placed 3 relays in the top 5, with the lone exceptions being an 11th-place 400 medley relay and a disappointingly DQ’ed 800 free relay (that would have placed 15th).
Youth Becomes Veterans: Aside from a few pieces, most notably Caitlin Geary as their second-best sprinter and top IM’er, this Auburn roster remains largely intact. Not only that, but they return as a much more veteran squad. Out of those three top-5 relays noted above (12 spots), 4 of the swims were done by freshman and 4 were done by sophomores.
When Auburn insiders were asked about a swimmer to watch on this Auburn team, across-the-board they came up with the name of butterflier Olivia Scott. In 2011, she was the only freshman in the country to score in the women’s 100 fly with a 6th-place finish in a season-best 52.29. With the summer she had in the 100 fly (she was 5th at USA Nationalys in 58.94 LCM), she probably enters the season as the nation-wide favorite to win that race at NCAA’s. If she can make some improvements in her sprint freestyles (she was a 49.9 in the 100 and 23.0 in the 50 at NCAA’s), it will be a big key for the Auburn relays.
Breaststrokes: On the surface, the loss of USA Swimming National Teamer Micah Lawrence, who is leaving the program a year early, should be a shot to this Auburn program. In reality, things weren’t clicking for Lawrence in Auburn, and she was largely a non-factor for her last year with the program. She’s now going to persue the Olympic dream training full-time at SwimMAC Carolina.
Twin juniors Lauren and Lindsey Norberg will ensure there’s no dropoff if the breaststroke performance, however. They placed 7th and 8th, respectively, in the SEC last year, though Lauren’s prelims time of 1:00.38 ranked her 5th-best in the conference overall. Freshman Olivia Scott will also play a big role in the breaststrokes, and probably comes to Auburn as the favorite to take over that medley relay spot. Lauren should maintain her spot on the 200 medley (Auburn’s best relay) thanks to her 27.23 split from NCAA’s. Lindsey is the more versatile of the pair, and has a decent 100 fly (54.30) as well.
I’ma Bos: We know that the Auburn medleys have a great back-half; in fact, they have bar-none the best back-half in the country. We talked about their breaststroke already. That leaves just the backstrokes, where the incumbent candidate will be sophomore Emily Bos and her 52.77 from NCAA’s that placed 13th in the nation. While that’s a very good time for a freshman, and will be enough to keep Auburn in the top 10 in both medleys, she still has not made the big leap forward that one might expect from a new college swimmer (she came in already swimming a 53.3). With what coach Brett Hawke has accomplished with some of the men’s backstrokers in the Auburn program, look for Bos to make some serious advances this year into NCAA A-Final territory.
Auburn has a little bit of depth in the backstrokes, with junior Hannah Riordan clocking in at 53.89 last year in the 100.
Sprint Medley: For those keeping track on your scorecards, with Bos, Lauren Norberg, Scott, and Vanderpool-Wallace all returning, Auburn brings back all four members of their 4th-place 200 medley relay from last season. Though most of the top relays in that event were very young (nobody in the A-Final graduated more than 1, and four relays return fully-intact), another top-4 finish should be a goal there.
Distance Group: This Auburn program, always known for its sprinters, has really started to hit a bit of a stride with their distance freestylers. Katie Gardocki, who will be a junior this year, really hit her stride at the end of last season, including a 13th-place finish in the women’s mile (16:04.85). Gardocki has developed herself a great closing kick, but she really needs to put some work into her front-end speed. She spent a lot of time working her 400 this summer (where she was an A-Finalist at US Nationals) and it seemed to really pay off in all of her races, from 200-800 (she had across the board 8+ second time drops in those three races).
The Valley: Auburn is great in the 100 yard races, and they’re definitely improving strongly in the 500 and 1650 yard races, but in between there’s a big void in the 200’s. After Geary’s graduation, this Auburn roster appears to have only one swimmer with the capability of scoring in a 200-yard race, and that’s Bos in the 200 back (1:54.74). This is going to be the big trouble-spot for the program this year. While it’s not statistically a necessity to score in the 200 yard races to place in the top-5 at NCAA’s, emperically it seems to be, and Auburn doesn’t have the depth at the sprints to make up for the scoring.
The 800 free relay will feel it the most, as without Geary, their top returner is Rebecca Jones in 1:46.61. Beyond her, you have to go all the way down to Gardocki’s 1:49.82 to find the next probable relay member (given that AVW is unlikely to use an event on this relay). Garcoki has the potential to be much faster than that, with a relay split of 1:47.7 at NCAA’s, but is still not near the level where she could carry this squad. This relay likely becomes a “punt” at NCAA’s, barring the emergence of any new depth in the event.
Plugging Gaps: Hawke did a great job with this very well-balanced freshman class in filling the program’s biggest needs and adding depth at just about every event. Abby Duncan is the biggest get as the #2-ranked breaststroker in the entire class, and she hails from the same program in Minnesota that produced Rachel Bootsma. In reality, with the work that Minnesota has done with breaststrokers, they were lucky to get her out of the state. Last year, she set state HS Records in both the 100 breaststroke and the 200 IM.
She will come to campus with the best breaststroke times on the Auburn squad (1:00.01/2:10.75), both of which would have put her solidly in last year’s B-Finals at NCAA’s. The 100 will be huge for the Auburn medleys, and could even be good enough to put both into the top 4 at NCAA’s; and the 200 will give help keep the Auburn momentum going with an evening swim in a 200 at NCAA’s. Her 50 breaststroke split from that state meet was 28.37, so she’ll have to fight for a second relay spot. Long-term, she’ll also develop into an NCAA scorer in the 200 IM, with a best time of 2:01.38.
Freshman Megan Fonteno comes from another great youth program: The Bolles School Sharks. First and foremost, she will bring immegiate improvements to the 800 free relay mentioned above with her 1:48.2 that ranks her 2nd on the Auburn squad. It’s not going to make that relay into a top-10 group, but it will give them a chance at a few points without having to sacrafice Vanderpool-Wallace.
Fonteno is equally as good in the butterfly events as well, with Nationals Cuts of 54.3/2:00.3. She could be an NCAA qualifier in either event as a freshman, with an eye on scoring as a sophomore.
Erica Belcher will also improve that 800 free relay (best of 1:49.2), and is another backstroker for this program with bests of 55.2/1:57.1. If she can make some (even small) improvements in her breaststroke, which is by far her weakest stroke, then she could also be a very good IM’er for this Auburn program.
Hawke was really focused on filling those gaps in the 200’s this year, as he didn’t bring in much in the way of sprinters. He probably feels that he has more to squeeze out of the likes of Olivia Scott, Rebecca Jones, and Emily Bos in those races to reinforce their 2nd-ranked 400 free relay.
Diving: Vennie Dantin came up very big for the Tigers at NCAA’s last year with a breakout season, including 6th-place finishes on both the 1-meter and the platform for 26 total points. This year, she will return as a senior and will be looking to score on all three boards. Her fellow senior Anna Aguero should have also scored, but had a poor showing at Zones to miss the meet. She should bounce back this year and could give Auburn a second scorer at NCAA’s.
2011-2012 Outllook: There’s little doubt that this Auburn team will be better than they were last season. They should be aiming for somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 NCAA points, which is a big improvement over 2011. After a few bumper-years of recruiting nation-wide, however, there are plenty of young teams ahead of them, so it will be a challenge to see how many they can leapfrog as they climb up the rankings. Hawke’s taper has improved every year that he’s been in full control of this Auburn program, and if that trend continues, they could finish as high as 5th, but I see probably a 6th-place finish as probably more likely.
This will be a big year for my Tigers — War Eagle!! Excited to see the new kids and what they can do.
This article makes it seem like losing Micah Lawerence isn’t a big deal, and that’s she’ll be easily replaced by A. Duncan. You point out that Lawerence didn’t do much anyways last season, which is true. But in reality, Lawerence was a Pan Pacific Games qualifier for the US last year! That sounds like a swimmer Hawke would want to keep around.
Both Duncan and Fonteno — AUs two top recruits — had both subpar summers, so we’ll see how that plays out. They could be great and also they could be another swimmer like Jones who you mentioned who is still pretty good but hasn’t done her times that she did in High School (I think she was a… Read more »