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Pacific Breaks School Records, Hits NCAA “A” Cut at Ohio State Invite

2018 Ohio State Winter Invite

  • February 10th-11th, 2018
  • McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion, Columbus, Ohio (Ohio State University)
  • Prelims/Finals, 25-yard, invite format
  • Live results

The 2018 Ohio State Invite, with no team scores being kept, is a regular-season-ending meet for most of its participating teams, but in spite of some big-name teams in attendance (Ohio State, Kentucky, Penn State, Purdue, among others), most of the stars from those teams didn’t participate. Instead, it served largely as a taper meet for swimmers who might not be on their teams’ rosters for their upcoming conference champions.

One big exception to that was Pacific, which sent 6 of their star swimmers to the meet in an attempt to hit some NCAA time standards prior to their conference meet.

And the Tigers delivered in a big way.

On day 1 of the meet, the school’s men’s 200 free relay of Mason Miller (19.90), Miles MacKenzie (19.48), Dylan Toy (19.16), and Yahav Shahaff (19.16) combined for a 1:17.69. That broke the vintage-2016 school record of 1:18.92 by over a second, in spite of all 4 swimmers being underclassmen.

While that time jumped them to 11th in the NCAA this season, it left them .07 seconds short of the NCAA Automatic Qualifying Time that they needed to take 1 step closer to the NCAA Championships.

On Sunday, when they time-trialed the race, they not only broke the record again with a 1:17.29, but they flew well under the NCAA “A” standard. They now rank 8th in the NCAA in the event. Now, to complete the qualification, they just need 1 individual swimmer (or diver) to also earn an invite to the NCAA Championships.

Their best chance at that is junior Yahav Shahaff, who ranks 15th nationally in the 100 breaststroke with a 52.89 that he swam on Saturday. Coming into this weekend’s meet, he was the only Tiger currently ranked in the top 50 of an event nationally, with around 29 typically invited in each event. Shahaff was the last qualifier in to last year’s meet with a 52.62.

Other Noteworthy Swims From the Meet

  • Pacific’s Mason Miller jumped to 33rd in the country in the men’s 100 fly with a 46.58 in prelims (he was 46.71 in finals). That also broke the school record set by Neil Franka earlier this season by almost a second.
  • Pacific’s Miles Mackenzie won the men’s 100 free in 43.49, nearly breaking Brad Schumacher’s school record.
  • Notre Dame junior Rebecca Walton swam a 4:50.89 to win the women’s 500 free. That improves her best time, set in high school, by 6 seconds. She also won the 1650 free in 16:33.04 – an 18 second drop.
  • Pacific sophomore Kenna Ramey hit an NCAA consideration time in the women’s 100 fly with a 53.10 – a new lifetime best for her.
  • Pacific’s Semaj Walker broke a 17-year old school record in the 100 breaststroke with a 1:01.11. That event was won by Notre Dame’s Alyssa Storino in an NCAA consideration time of 1:00..85.
  • Ohio State’s Devin Landstra won the women’s 100 backstroke in 54.46.  Her teammate Colin McDermott did the same in the men’s 100 backstroke with a 48.43.
  • Purdue freshman Maizie Seidl won the women’s 200 free in 1:47.87, which is her best time of the season by more than 3 seconds.
  • Notre Dame’s Claire DeSelm swam 1:59.08 in the 200 backstroke.
  • Katie Smith of Notre Dame won the women’s 50 free in 22.80 after a 22.76 in prelims.

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swim fan
6 years ago

Hell of a relay and some really impressive individual swims. Miles is a senior so not all underclassmen. They have plenty of talented sprinters to take his place in the coming years.

Jmanswimfan
6 years ago

New splits?

rebel
Reply to  Jmanswimfan
6 years ago

shahaf19.88, toy19.4, miller18.9, miles19.0

SwimGeek
6 years ago

Seems like there a number of these early invites or “First Chance” meets (as opposed to last chance). Seems odd to me — to do a big invite a week or 2 before a conf meet. Is this a new trend?

JP input too short
Reply to  SwimGeek
6 years ago

I think most teams do it to get their non-conference team guys a taper meet that’s not a tiny TT-only last chance meet. I have no answer for why Pacific decided to go all the way to Ohio with their A team when they have a conference meet in a couple weeks…

Tammy Touchpad Error
Reply to  JP input too short
6 years ago

If thier conference meet is as East Los Angeles College again, its cause that place is an ancient cesspool of tsunomic waves and every 50 adds .5 and every 200 adds around 1.5. Well worth traveling to a real pool to get some cuts and then getting back to train through conference at that isht hole.

California really doesn’t have a good pool anymore for fall/ winter/ spring days that don’t fall on a 75 degree plus day (which happens less than you’d think). California swimmers go through some tough times before they arrive in your luxurious “aquatic centers” and “natatoriums”.

swimfan
Reply to  Tammy Touchpad Error
6 years ago

MPSF has their conference at East LA. I can imagine having a whole block at OSU makes a huge difference for relay starts compared to the quarter of a block at east la.

Mr G.
Reply to  swimfan
6 years ago

Pool was very recently remodeled: didn’t they upgrade the blocks?

Mr G.
Reply to  Tammy Touchpad Error
6 years ago

Hi Temps up to 77 deg F for this meet: plenty warm, at least for a swimmer who came up in Northern California (e.g. NCS).

The PCSC is the same week, outdoors in La Mirada: with none of that indoor air pollution!

Swimmer!
6 years ago

2016 is vintage now? I know swimming is getting faster, but I don’t think 2016 is old.

Swimmer!
Reply to  Braden Keith
6 years ago

You’re referring to the noun. You used it as an adjective in the article, which has a different meaning.

dmswim
Reply to  Braden Keith
6 years ago

“Record” is the noun in the phrase. Vintage and 2016 are adjectives. The way Braden is using it is correct though. It’s like a wine–a 2016 vintage wine means it was made in 2016.

Swimmer!
Reply to  dmswim
6 years ago

Vintage as an adjective only refers to wine. All other cases refer to something old.

What Braden is saying is ‘2016’ is the adjective describing the noun ‘vintage’, which is just awkward phrasing. It would be like saying a ‘Camry-2018’ and not ‘a 2018 Camry’.

Swimmer!
Reply to  Swimmer!
6 years ago

If he were to be using ‘vintage’ as a noun, it would make more sense to say ‘they broke the 200 free relay school record of 2016 vintage’. Which is just an incredibly odd way of writing/talking about athletic records.

Saying ‘the 2016 vintage school record’ has ‘vintage’ as an adjective and is not referring to wine, so it is referring to something old or classic. Which you then would have to argue that 2016 records are old, justifying the use of ‘vintage’, or that there was something particularly significant about 2016 record. Since I can’t really argue either of those, I would say the use of ‘vintage’ was not appropriate.

Joe
6 years ago

Way to go TIGERS!!!

Pounce Pounce Grrrrrrrrrrr
6 years ago

Ooohhhh aaaahhhhh, Tigers on the war path!!! Way to go Tigers!

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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