The Louisville Cardinals continue to build the depth necessary to sustain their recent success, with three more verbal commitments this week: two for the men, and one for the women.
The top name in Arthur Albierto’s latest group is Christian Garkani from the Aquazot Swim Club and Corona del Mar High School in the Irvine/Newport Beach area. He will join the Louisville stable of freestylers, with bests of 45.30/1:39.79 in the 100 and 200. There’s a lot of turnover in the Louisville relays coming both this season and next, and Garkani will have a great opportunity to earn a spot on those free relays.
The other guy in the group is Joe Brown out of El Paso’s Eastwood High School and the Desert Shark Swim Club. He made the A-Finals at the Texas State Championship in both the 100 fly (50.81) and the 200 IM (1:52.16), but his best event is a non-high school distance: the 200 fly. There he’s been a 1:49.85. Louisville had a great 200 fly group last year, but many of them graduated or will after this season. He will fill that role for sure, but can really add value if he can develop a second or third event. The 400 IM, where he’s been a 3:56.73, could be one of those events.
On the women’s side, Albiero has grabbed Lauren Herich, the top in-state distance swimmer in the class (and second best in high school overall behind Leah Stevens) from the Northern Kentucky Clippers.
She’ll come in with bests of 1:50.33 in the 200 free, a 4:57.16 in the 500 free, and a 16:32.77 in the 1650. She’s also a Junior Nationals qualifier in long course. Her 200 and 1650 times are very good; which leaves the intermediary 500 kind of strange. I think we’ll see a huge drop from her in that event as a freshman.