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 finish with the two defending National Champions from Berkeley. To keep track of all of our season previews, we’ve added a link in the menu bar, just click “College Previews” at the top of the page (now located under the “In the News” menu).
Key Losses: Austin Staab (53 NCAA Points, 4 NCAA Relays), Jake Allen (13 NCAA Relays, 3 NCAA Finals Relays, 1 NCAA Prelims Relay), Alex Coville (22 NCAA Points, 4 NCAA Relays), John Criste (6 NCAA Points, 1 NCAA Finals Relay, 1 NCAA Prelims Relay), Brent Eichenseer (4 NCAA Diving Points)
Key Additions: David Nolan (Sprint Free/Back/IM/Fly), Drew Cosgarea (Distance Free/IM), Jon Edwards (Sprint Free/Back/IM), Robert Hommel (Mid D/Breast, Jack Lane (Free), Thomas Stephens(Free/Fly), Ethan Hallowell (Sprint Free/Back), Erich Peske (Sprint Free/Fly), Kristian Ipsen (Diving)
2010-2011 Recap: Stanford got a big boost last year with the return of Austin Staab, who sat out the second-half of his junior season. He came back better than ever, and put up a Swimmer-of-the-Year worthy performance (though he was edged out for that honor by Cal’s Nathan Adrian). He took NCAA titles in the 100 fly, 200 IM, and a 6th-place finish in the 100 free to go with it en route to taking the Cardinal to a 3rd-place finish at NCAA’s.
The Cardinal won’t be as lucky this year. Staab, who may or may not have been eligible for another year of collegiate swimming, has withdrawn his appeal to the NCAA for a redshirt for his half-completed junior season.
D-Group: But it’s not all bad news on the eligibility front. Earlier in the summer, they got a big boost when the NCAA did grant a waiver to distance swimmer David Mosko, who missed what would have been his senior season last year with a shoulder injury. That will be a huge boost for Stanford’s scoring, given that he seems to be on his way to back to normal for the Cardinal. As an indicator of how much he brings to this team, during his junior season (2009-2010), he scored 36 NCAA points, including 4th-place finishes in the 200 fly and 500 free. The 200 butterfly field at NCAA’s this year is going to be extremely strong (his 1:42.99 will be battling even to A-final), but he’s got a shot at a National Title in the 500 free.
His training partner, and biggest competition nationally in that 500, will be teammate and fellow senior Bobby Bollier. Last year, Bollier was the runner-up in the 500 free with a 4;13.94 (Mosko went 4:13.92 in 2010), and took 2nd in the 200 fly (1:40.76). He will be fighting Tom Shields of Cal for that National Title, but Bollier is the top returner.
The pair of Mosko and Bollier both had very good summer seasons as well. In the 200 fly, Bollier took the USA Swimming National Championship in the 200 fly and made himself a front-runner to qualify for the 2012 US Olympic Team. In that same race, Mosko took 7th. Both swimmers will also make up a vital part of the 800 free relay that placed 5th last year: Bollier has a flat-start 1:33-high, and Mosko was rolling 1:35.4’s prior to his injury. Mosko’s return is close to a wash with the loss of Jake Allen in that relay, which means that they return basically a full contingent there.
The Cardinal also return senior Morgan Priestley on that relay, and though he started this season out very slow (a 1:50 against Centenary), he was 8th in the 200 free at NCAA’s (1:34.48). Combine that with an awesome summer where he was 13th in the 200 free at USA Swimming Natinoals (and knocked more than a second off of his best time with a 1:49.5) he’s in for a huge year.
Bollier is also coming back as last year’s 7th-place finisher in the 100 fly, with a 45.85 season-best from prelims. He shoud be in the top-3 in that event at NCAA’s this year.
Lest we forget the star of this distance group (at least in terms of international recognition), Chad La Tourette will be in his final year of eligibility this season for the Cardinal. The longer the race gets, the stronger La Tourette becomes, as was evidenced by his 2nd-place tie in the 1650 at NCAA’s in 14:34.80. He also was 6th in the 500 (4:16.15). The big “Olympic question” could be a factor for him, given that distance swimmers need more time to rebuild their endurance after a taper, but the same questions will be in play for his major competition – Michael McBroom of Texas; and Andrew Gemmell and Martin Grodzki of Georgia. The good news for La Tourette is that he’s still got a big gap between him and 3rd place in the 1500 in USA-Swimming terms (about a 9-second gap last year), so he’s pretty comfortable going into Trials.
S-Group: Like we discussed in the women’s preview, Stanford isn’t usually thought of as much of a “sprint school,” but they made their mark last year when they took the National Title in 1:15.26 en route to a new American Record. Off of that relay, however, the only swimmer returning swimmer will be junior Aaron Wayne. Fortunately for the Cardinal, he really broke into the elite ranks with his sprinting last year, including flat-starts of 19.5/42.9 at Pac-10’s. He also becomes dangerous in the 100 fly, where he went a 46.9 at the conference meet before dropping it for the 200 free (1:35.6). His butterfly sprinting abilities will give the Cardinal some flexibility on the 200 medley relay.
Freshman Class: Luckily, the Cardinal have brought in a whole lot of help to replenish their relays, where they’ll need to replace 12 spots (11 of them coming in the 4 shorter groups). We’ll hit the freshman class early in this one, simply because they are so phenomenal and will have a bigger instant-impact that any class we’ve seen in a while. We’ve had a bit of a sneak-preview from this group, as they tore up Stanford’s meet against Centenary last weekend, but they didn’t show a ton at that meet.
The big star is David Nolan. As a senior at Hershey High School in Pennsylvania, he broke three National High School Records – in the 200 IM (1:41.39), 100 back (45.49), and 100 free (42.34). Those three events are the ones that receive the most attention, as he’s the record holder, but he’s also a great butterflier, with a 46.97 a week after his taper meet. There’s a chance he would have broken that National Record too if he had swum it at state.
Other times of his include: 50 free (19.58), 200 free (1:35.48), 200 back (1:42.00), and 100 breast (54.77).
His 100 back time would have placed him 3rd at NCAA’s last year, his 200 IM time would have won, and he also would have earned A-finals in the 100 free and 200 back. That means that without any improvements, he’s probably looking for at least 45 points next year. In the more likely scenario, with improvements, he could be a National Champion in two events and push well past the 50-point barrier. He’ll also be a dagger on any of the 5 relays and should go a long way to scoring top-8 finishes for those squads.
Nolan is the big lightning-rod of the group, but he’s not the only one who’s going to make an immediate impact. Next on the list is Drew Cosgarea, who is sort of the distance-corollary to Nolan. In high school, he went for a 4:23 in his 500 free and a 15:15 in the mile. That time in the 1650 was done all the way back in 2008, and he didn’t attempt a mile-swim in 2011, but he very well could be sub-15 in that event even as a freshman. Cosgarea also has a very good 200 back (1:44.96) which is within two seconds of a B-final. In the IM”s, he has bests of 1:46.85 and 3:45.06, the latter of which would have just missed an A-final last year. It’s hard to compare anybody to Nolan, but Cosgarea is definitely a headliner.
Robert Hommel might be an even better middle-distance guy than Cosgarea, with bests of 1:36.7 in the 200 free and 4:22.3 in the 500 free. He also comes down pretty well into the 100 (45.2) and long-term will be a player on that relay. He’s not quite as versatile as Cosgarea, but he does bring in breaststroke bests of 56.2/1:58.9, the latter of which he could be an NCAA qualifier in as a freshman.
Jon Edwards is the reigning Texas High School Swmmer of the Year thanks to winning all four of his events at the 5A State Meet. Edwards is a prototypical Stanford athlete – he graduated in the top-15 of his class at Houston’s Cy Creek High School (out of a class of over 700) and will major in Mechanical Engineering. He will also participate in Stanford’s ROTC program as a freshman.
Competitively, he’s as versatile as Nolan. In the freestyles, he’s got bests of 20.7/44.8/1:37.2. In the 100 back, which is his best event, he goes a 48.0, and in the 200 he’s got a 1:44.9. He also has a 1:46.9 in the 200 IM, and is an above-average butterflier as well. Immediately, he could be another replacement part for the Stanford relays that suddenly look a lot better off than their losses might imply. His transition to college swimming will be a difficult one, but if he can juggle them all, he’s going to be another great swimmer for the Cardinal.
The enormity of this class goes on, not just with warm bodies, but with talent that could lead a class. Jack Lane out of Dynamo brings in 20.5/44.7/1:36.4 in the 50-200 freestyles. Thomas Stephens from NOVA goes 21.2/44.7/1:36.9 in the same events and adds to it stellar fly times of 49.8/1:47.1, and a great 500 free (4:24.78) as well. Ethan Hallowell brings another 44-second 100 freestyler (44.5), and another backstroker (49.9/1:49.0). Capping the class off is Erich Peske, a member of the 2010 US Youth Olympics squad in Singapore, who brings in a 48.0 in the 100 fly and a 1:46.9 in the 200, both of which put him within range at NCAA’s.
To sum up this class, they bring in by my count, they bring in at least 5 guys who are 44 or better in the 100 free, 5 guys who are 20-point or better in the 50 free, at least 4 at 1:37 or better in the 200 free, a 48.0 butterflier, a 45.4 backstroker, a 54 and a 56 breaststroker, and I can’t even count the number of guys who are under 1:50 in the 200 IM. I’d be shocked if there’s ever been a class with those kind of credentials.
Other Sprinters: That freshman class is great, but don’t think that they won’t be battling for relay spots. At Pac-10’s, junior Geoff Cheah flat-started 19.9/43.7 in the 50 and 100 freestyles and could only crack a relay prelims swim at NCAA’s. Jake Hartley, one of the top sprinters in last year’s freshman class, went a 20.0 and Andrew Saeta did as well. There will be plenty of competition in the sprint freestyle workouts, and sprint freestyle training is where that competition can really pay off the most.
Breaststrokers: If there was one piece the freshman class was lacking (on the presumption that Nolan isn’t going to focus a whole lot of his time racing it), it was a true breaststroker to replace John Criste. The Cardinal do, however, return a National Teamer in Curtis Lovelace, who tied for 5th in the 100 last year at NCAA’s (52.97) and was 4th in the 200 (1:54.10). Ideally, Stanford would like to see him knock a few more tenths off of his 50 for the health of their 200 medley relay, but he is more-than-capable of carrying the breaststroke load alone. He will be a senior this season, though, and a replacement for him will probably be Stanford’s biggest target this fall.
Backstrokers: Nolan is a great backstroker, no doubt. But that doesn’t mean that he will immediately come in and just blow away the rest of the Stanford backstroke group. There are two great leaders already holding things down there in Matthew Swanston and Matthew Thompson. At NCAA’s last year, Swanston took 11th in the 100 in 47.02 (with a best of 46.7). The 200, however, is where those two really are dominant, as the pair of similarly-nome’d juniors took 4th and 5th, respectively, in 1:42-lows. They probably won’t challenge Cory Chitwood of Arizona for the National Title this year, but with Eric Ress sitting the year out and Marco Loughran being done with his eligibility, they could very well go 2-3.
The big advantage of having two great 200 backstrokers is that it frees up Nolan to focus on a 200 IM-100 back-100 free event lineup. The significance of that is that there is more overall team-value to Nolan focusing training on the 100 free than on the 200 back, because of relays.
Thompson also returns with 6-points from the 400 IM after finishing 11th in 3:44.8.
Diving: Stanford graduated their only NCAA qualifier from last year, Brent Eichenseer, but a strong recruiting class last season leaves them in great position. They return sophomore Noah Garcia who placed in the top-10 in all three disciplines at Pac-10’s last year, including a high of 7th on the platform. They also bring back another sophomore in Dhruv Tyagi who was named the Pac-10 newcomer of the year with three top-10 finishes of his own, including 5th on the 1-meter. At Zones, Tyagi placed 7th on the 1-meter, which left him one spot out of qualifying for NCAA’s. Taylor Sishc, a junior-to-be, placed 5th on the platform at zones, which left him too one spot away from qualifying from NCAA’s. Stanford could qualify as many as three divers for NCAA’s this year (two seems to be a sure-thing), which will allow them to take full advantage of the diving rule that allows 6 diving-events to one roster spot. They should be able to mix-and-match to find the best combination of 6 events.
In the three disciplines (from low to high) there were 6, 8, and 10 scorers who won’t return from last year, which are big numbers. Coming out of a strong Zone E on the West Coast, even qualifying for NCAA’s should put those three guys in great position to pick up points (especially on the platform).
And that freshman class we talked about didn’t stop at just swimmers. They also brought in one of the nation’s top divers, period, in Kristian Ipsen. He is the synchro partner of the great Troy Dumais, and in 2011 won the US National Championship on the 3-meter. With Nick McCrory of Duke taking a redshirt and David Boudia of Purdue turning pro, Ipsen could be one of the best collegiate divers in the country next year. Big points will be coming from him.
2011-2012 Outlook: If Staab had been granted his extra year of eligibility, I think that Stanford would be a moderate favorite for the National Championship. He wasn’t though, so we have to reshape how we look at this squad. I’m comfortable with calling Nolan-for-Staab a wash in terms of points. I also think that the 7 other big freshmen we discussed above will come close to combining to replace the rest of the 41 individual swimming points that were lost.
The 800 free relay should be better than last year, the 200 medley should be about the same, and the 400 medley should be better. The 200 free relay will have to take a hit, there’s no way around that. The 400 free relay is a bit of an oddball, because they had the 3rd-best time overall in finals, but a dreadful prelims swim left them in the B-heat. So while the relay may be slower than it was last year, they could very well score more points, which is the key in the team battle.
This is going to be a very good team this year. There’s no obvious weakness in the pool aside from how heavily they’ll count on a freshman class, but there’s also plenty of experience and National Teamers on the squad as well. This meet will be tight enough to where diving could count, and Ipsen will be huge. If they can squeeze some points out of their other young divers, that would be significant for the efficient use of their roster spots.. If the rest of the freshmen can outperform even their lofty expectations, they’re still in the hunt for the title with Texas, but a top-two seems very likely.
Stanford brought in the #1 diving recruit, Kristian Ipsen, who is a regular on the national/international diving stage including winning the 3M springboard at US Nationals this summer with a 499.5, which would’ve won NCAAs last year.
But Nolan has to do it with other guys going 142 or better. it is a different ball game in college (but no doubt he is phenomenal). Just saying…can’t give him the victory quite yet.
Nolan’s 200 IM time would have won him NCAAs. He went a 1:41.39, and Staab won with a 1:41:57 😉