University of Arizona All-American Annie Ochitwa has announced that she will transfer to the University of Missouri. She’s at least the 6th Arizona swimmer, and 3rd female All-America to transfer out this summer.
Ochitwa is supremely versatile, having NCAA scoring-worthy times in the 50 free, 100 free, 100 back, 100 fly, 200 IM, and is not far off in the 100 breaststroke. Individually last season, Ochitwa placed 20th in the 100 fly at the NCAA Championships, 31st in the 100 free, and 38th in the 50 free. She also split 21.92 in the 50 free on the 2nd leg of Arizona’s 5th-place 200 free relay; and swam fly on both Arizona’s 6th place 200 medley relay and 13th-place 400 medley relay. She finished her meet splitting 48.63 on Arizona’s 14th-place 400 free relay.
She’s capable of being an immediate four-relay swimmer from Missouri.
Ochitwa’s best times in yards:
- 50 free – 22.11
- 100 free – 48.53
- 200 free – 1:49.13
- 50 back – 23.91
- 100 back – 51.21
- 200 back – 1:58.18
- 100 breast – 1:02.98
- 100 fly – 51.02
- 200 IM – 1:56.73
“I’m honored to continue my academic and athletic careers at Mizzou! I’m thankful for the opportunity to experience two great universities, and I can’t wait to be a tiger! ?,” Ochitwa said in an Instagram post.
Arizona’s head coach Rick Demont retired at the end of last season, and the school hired Augie Busch as his replacement. Augie is the son of former Arizona and current USA Swimming National Team Director Frank Busch, who won 6 NCAA Coach of the Year awards in his 22 seasons at Arizona.
Current Missouri head coach Greg Rhodenbaugh is also a Frank Busch protege, having spent 11 years as an assistant at Arizona.
Other Arizona transfers this summer:
- Arizona’s Best Breaststroker, Kennedy Lohman, Transfers to Texas
- All-American Taylor Garcia Announces Transfer from Arizona to Michigan
- Grant Sanders Makes Transfer From Arizona to Florida
- Arizona’s Blair Bish to Transfer to Missouri State
- Nick Hogsed Will Transfer to Ohio State After 2 Seasons at Arizona
Sending best of luck to this amazing young lady! Annie, you are going to be a great addition to the Mizzou team!
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wonder if katinka konopka will transfer…
Nope.
I think her name is Katrina. She might have the coaching staff all to herself if swimmers keep leaving.
yikes, typo
Scratch, you hit the nail on the head. That is the most accurate description of the situation that existed at Arizona last year.
Place blame on what and who you want. Men’s and women’s teams lost their best athletes after the annoucment of the head coaches retirement, and more after Busch named new head coach. Best of luck to you and your teammates and the new staff. Hope to see Arizona back on top, but guessing it will be a long time, if ever, with Bowman taking over the state.
Change that to only womens team lost there best athletes. Last year the mens team didn’t have anyone that was truly irreplacable.
No kidding. Especially if these kids did nothing wrong that’s poor coaching. Parents trust their kids to these college coaches to guide them when a lot of them just make it a business without taking into consideration they’re playing with kids lives.
These swimmers surely decided to leave prior to the coaches changing. The last coaching staff caused too many interpersonal issues within the team and scratched swimmers from swims unnecessarily. Sad the team has fallen apart, hopefully Augie can rebuild confidence.
Wrong. Look at the timing. The most recent group of transfers is leaving because of the coaching changes, and these losses are major damage to the program.
The programs been damaged since Demont took over. He is the one who ran UofA into the ground
“Wrong”. Yeah, sure, doubt someone who clearly has insider knowledge. The facts are all of the athletes were either already gone or considering transfer before any coach announcments. Not to say the changes weren’t a catalyst. On the mens side, It wasn’t THAT much loss. Blair is far from irreplacable. As far as the other two transfers, they had literally no positive impact to the team anyways.
It wasn’t that much of a loss? Arizona’s swimming program is going straight to the bottom. The other two transfers obviously had their head on when they made the decision before Demont “left”. Blair lost his swimming scholarship from bad decisions and with Demont gone, Blair lost his hopes of getting his scholarship back. Sounds like some pool poison and it’s taking their team one by one.
The insider knowledge is that those coaches were covering up for a lot of damage caused by Zona swimmers. There’s more to the story than these rumors.
Olympic Legend?
Magana aka La ballena blanca