Texas A&M is very good at most of the strokes. They’ve got a crew of great backstrokers, and butterfliers, a few great breaststrokers with more on the way. But what they really need is freestylers to fill out their relays.
Sophomore Liliana Ibanez looks like she could be a star in the making, based on her performances so far at the Pan Am Games. Kim Pavlin and Erica Dittmer have enough speed in them to break out 49-lows on relay starts at NCAA’s. But after that, things get very thin.
Their latest verbal commitment, from in-stater Claire Brandt of the Dallas Mustangs, should help that situation very quickly. As a junior last year, she went bests of 23.25/50.79 in the short freestyles, and a 1:49.88 in the 200 free. Brandt’s challenge will be that she was very fast at a very young age (she was already going 26’s as a 10-year old), and has plateaued in her sprints the past few years.
That’s not to say, however, that she’s plateaued as a swimmer. While her sprint freestyles stayed very close to the same throughout her high school career so far, her backstrokes have taken huge leaps. She now goes a 55.8 in the 100 back and a 1:59.3 in the 200 back, and is still making big improvements.
As an example, since 2008, Brandt has dropped exactly 0 seconds in her 50 free…she was going a 23.25 when she was 14 (which is phenomenal) and matched that time last year when she was 16. In the 200 back, however, she’s dropped a more typical 13-seconds in that time.
There’s two reasons why this could be interesting. First, could A&M coach Steve Bultman get her sprints going in the right direction? And second, Might she be a 200 backstroker/freestyler type, and just was so good at the sprint frees when she was young that she stuck through it throughout? Only time will tell.
Claire has a younger sister, Rebecca, who is currently a 7th grader. She is going to be a big catch in the class of 2017, as she was the Texas 11-12 State Champion this summer in the 200 IM. Rebecca is a touch better in the middle-distance events, and though siblings aren’t always identical in skill, that might be an indicator of Claire’s untapped talents in the longer races.