Texas Women Shatter Big 12 Record in 400 Medley Relay

NC STATE VS. TEXAS – DAY 2

• January 28, 2023
• Lee & Joe Jamail Texas Swim Center, Austin, Texas
• Short Course Yards
• Live results on Meet Mobile (search “Austin”)
• Live Results – Web
• Schedule of events
• Race Videos posted on SwimSwam’s YouTube Channel

The Texas Longhorns aren’t long for the Big 12, but they’re making sure to leave their stamp on the conference record books on the way out the door.

For the 2nd time in 2 days, the Longhorn women have broken a Big 12 Record. This time, it was the 400 medley relay that touched in 3:25.29 to break the existing school and Big 12 Records of 3:25.96 set mid-season at the Minnesota Invite.

Coming into this season, Texas’ 3:26.32 from the 2022 Big 12 Championships was the conference record.

Splits Comparison:

The clear difference-maker for this record-setting effort was Sticklen. After setting a Big 12 Record of 49.79 on Friday, she backed it up with a 49.35 relay split on Saturday, which is the 5th-best relay split in history. Erika Brown leads that category all-time with a 49.11 from the 2018 SEC Championships, followed by a 49.24 from Louise Hansson, and times of 49.25 and 49.31 from Kelsi (Worrell) Dahlia.

The rest of the relay still has room to grow if they match their December splits in March at the NCAA Championships.

The only swimmer who changed was freshman Lydia Jacoby jumped on in place of Anna Elendt, who swam mid-season. Elendt’s split was faster, but Jacoby had the hot hand in winning the individual 100 breaststroke on Friday, breaking a National Age Group Record for 17-18s in the process. Elendt did not swim on any of the other Longhorn medleys, though she did finish 2nd in the individual 200 breaststroke in 2:07.83 – behind Jacoby’s 2:06.66.

The interesting development for this 400 medley is the progress of Bray on the backstroke leg – she is the former Big 12 Record holder on the fly leg, but with Texas having a deep butterfly group, she has shifted to the backstroke leg – with continuing success. Combined with Pash’s development, this is a relay headed toward a serendipitous simultaneous peak at the same time.

The NC State women, who finished 2nd at last year’s NCAA Championship meet, swam a 3:29.55 on Saturday. The Longhorn women have a ways to go in order to catch up to the Virginia Cavaliers, who set an NCAA Record last March in 3:22.34 – still three seconds better. But 3:25.29 would have finished 3rd at NCAAs last year (behind Virginia and NC State), which would be big points for the Longhorn women as they try and pull off a title upset.