2023 SOUTHERN ZONE SECTIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS (ORLANDO)
- February 9-12, 2023
- Rosen Aquatic Center, Orlando, Florida
- Long Course Meters (50 meters), Prelims/Finals
- Psych Sheets
- Meet site
- Results
- Day 1 Recap
- Day 2 Recap
Another win and another personal best came for 16-year-old phenom Summer McIntosh on Saturday evening at the Orlando Sectionals.
McIntosh won the 100 back in a new personal best of 1:00.57 in her only individual event on the day, which knocked a total of 1.58 seconds off her previous personal best from the Mare Nostrum last May.
McIntosh also swam the leadoff backstroke leg of the winning Sarasota Sharks 400 medley, going even faster in 1:00.25.
The time in an event that is not one of McIntosh’s primary events ranks McIntosh as the fastest Canadian 16-year-old ever in the event. That title formerly belonged to Jade Hannah: she swam 1:00.37 at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia.
Though splits were hard to come by after McIntosh because of touchpad errors, the rest of the relay included Danica Aten on breaststroke, Addison Sauickie on fly, and Michaela Mattes anchoring on the freestyle leg.
Those wins completed a near-sweep for Sarasota. US Junior National Team member Gracie Weyant won the 200 IM in 2:17.27, which is about three seconds slower than her personal best, and Junior National Team member Michaela Mattes won the 400 free in 4:10.97, which is about a second-and-a-half slower than her personal best.
The lone swimmer to disrupt the Sharks’ daily sweep was 16-year-old Maya Golubovic in the girls’ 50 free. She won in 26.45, undercutting her best time of 26.78, which was done less than a month ago.
In total, she’s cut almost a full second (.99 seconds) off her previous best this season.
17-year old Addison Reese from Laker Swimming was 2nd in 26.50. That’s a new best time by .13 seconds for the high school junior and Kentucky commit.
Her 13-year-old teammate Rylee Erisman was 3rd in 26.51. That’s her best time by a quarter-of-a-second. She is the first 13-year-old to go under 27 seconds this season, and ranks her as one of the top 15 American swimmers at that age of the last decade.
Her brother, 16-year-old Ryan Erisman picked a win of his own – though he leans more toward the distance races. He topped the field in the 400 free in 3:54.42, which was 4.7 seconds better than the runner-up Ethan Ekk from Tallahassee.
That swim for the elder Erisman takes a whopping 10 seconds off his best time done at the Cary Futures meet last July. It also qualifies him for the 2024 US Olympic Trials, where the standard is 3:55.59.
That is Erisman’s second qualification of the championship, after a 4:22.12 in the 400 IM, which was an eight second improvement. He also just-missed the standard in the 800 free earlier in the meet in 8:10.22. That swim was still a better-than-11-second improvement on his previous best.
He has a total of three individual wins and three personal bests in four events; he also placed 4th in the 200 free in 1:54.40. His 1:53.62 in prelims missed his best by a few tenths.
Other Saturday/Day 3 Winners & Notables:
- 27-year-old Yeziel Morales won the men’s 100 back in 56.89, just ahead of Sarasota’s Amadeusz Knop (57.11). Knop, who is headed to the University of Florida in the fall, missed his best time by three-tenths of a second.
- 15-year-old Ethan Ekk was 5th in that 100 back in 57.85, which is the second-best time in the country this season by a 15-year-old.
- 25-year-old Grant Sanders, a former Arizona Wildcat and Florida Gator, won the 200 IM in 2:04.48. He is presenting Tampa Bay Aquatics at this meet. The top junior swimmer was Raymond Prosinski from Loggerhead Aquatics in 2:06.41 for a 3rd-place finish. He is committed to South Carolina for the fall.
- Leif Bouwman of the Jupiter Dragons won the boys’ 50 free in 23.40, which in total lowers his personal best by four-tenths of a second (following a 23.56 in prelims). Bouwman, a Canadian, was just 10th in the 50 free at last year’s meet, showing a big progression to this year. He won the 100 fly on Friday night as well.
- The Bolles School Sharks won the 400 medley relay in 3:48.67, with the group of Landon Kyser, Eldad Zamir, Carter Lancaster, and Kayden Lancaster combining for the win. The 16-year-old Carter Lancaster split 54.78 on the fly leg.
Sunday’s McIn-Watch
McIntosh, a perfect six-for-six this week, is scheduled to finish her racing on Sunday with swims in the 200 breaststroke and 200 backstroke.
I thought Taylor Ruck was under a minute at this age?
Taylor has the 15-17 year old NAG so maybe she didn’t get under 1:00 until she was 17, and then had a big drop?
Ruck went a 58.97 at 17 and 1:00.61 at 15. The fastest time on the FINA database for her at 16 is 1:00.78. So looks like she didn’t break a minute until 17.
(Confirming what Jimmyswim said): Taylor Ruck’s first time sub-minute was on August 23, 2017, when she had already turned 17.
Very impressive times by Rylee Erisman. Seems to have a bright future ahead of her.
Speaking of jade hannah…. Where is she these days? Still at LSU?
Allegedly. We haven’t been able to get a response from the coaches about her status.
I was hoping she might thrive at LSU and that she might return to the form she showed as a junior. She was such a promising young swimmer.
She is at LSU and has had a sling on in some of her IG stories. Maybe rotator cuff or labrum surgery?
Way to go, Summer! 🇨🇦❤️🔥🇨🇦❤️🔥
I’m still keeping my predictions for her:
Summer McIntosh in Fukuoka prediction:
200 IM gold🥇
400 IM gold 🥇
200 fly gold🥇
400 free silver🥈
And 3 relay medals
Summer McIntosh in Paris prediction:
200 IM gold🥇
400 IM gold🥇
200 fly gold🥇
400 free gold🥇
And 3 relay medals
The potential for the individual medals is sure there. But the relay predictions are verrrrryyy suspect at this point. This is not the Canadian team it was in Tokyo. Ruck will be clearer in a month when NCAA’s hits as to where she is, and Smith is coming on. But Oleksiak is a huge question mark and a crucial one. And can’t deny losing Sanchez hurt. McNeil and Masse will be there when it counts. And still no world class Breaststroker in sight. It just seems like in each relay the Canadians may be missing 1 leg get them back on the podiums in what might be the tightest women’s relay fields in history.
So probably best not to… Read more »
She’ll turn 18 just a few weeks after Paris ends, and I think dropping from 3:59 to 3:56 from 15-17 is pretty reasonable after 4:02 to 3:59 between the ages of 14 and 15. Add the fact that few women’s distance swimmers are still setting PBs by the time they’re nearly 24 and I think McIntosh has a great shot at gold
Largely true. I have a lot of faith in Oleksiak actually as injury aside, her motivation and happiness seems to have been way high the past couple years. She may not be ‘there’ this summer but she has proven to know how to build in an Olympic year.
Each relay past couple years we’ve had the hope that one might break thru, but never all 4 producing at life time bests the same day which with less depth than us/aus, is the challenge. Massive credit to all the women prelims and finals though to now cement Canada as an expected medal each time.
4×2 Tokyo 3 of the 4 were ‘on’, Ruck was coming off her health struggles and Smith… Read more »
Not sure the 400 Free is quite there either. Even for a 16yr old, dropping 3 seconds to get to Titmus is a reach.
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I didn’t expect her to beat Titmus in Fukuoka, have a look at my prediction. I predicted silver in 400 free.
Summer McIntosh at barely 16 is such a phenomenal talent…. literally in the league of GOATs like Phelps and others. Will dominate women’s swimming for at least a decade and in multiple events
She has a long, long way to go. Maybe she should talk to her Floridian neighbor Dressel.
I’m sorry, but McIntosh is way more talented than Dressel.
Dressel was nowhere near any WR at the age of 16 or 17 or even 18.
McIntosh has extremely high potential. It is way too early to be crowning her the future GOAT and saying what she will achieve. She doesn’t even have an Olympic medal.
Just appreciate her talent for what it is instead of trying to crush her under the weight of future expectations. Shane Gould held the 100 free, 200 free, 400 free, 800 free, 1500 free and 200IM world records simultaneously at age 15… then she quit swimming at 16 because of the pressure.
Hard to be in any GOAT conversation without about a decade of dominance, in any sport. a year or even 4 year Olympiad of dominance is very impressive, but unless the world knows your name like Phelps or Jordan, you aren’t it. yet. annoying how all of sports throw around “GOAT” like there’s always one around. Swimming has Ledecky, that’s it active for now. WRs being broken don’t immediately get you there, holding it for a decade is what does.
Ok time to ask Braden and staff for round 2 of rediculas Summer “add ups”. We had the 4*2s in the fall, now time for the 4*100s:
Fly 57.9
Back 100.2
Breast 110
Free 53 mid (relay split)
Total= right around 401…
So who’s got a faster addup?
Katinka – 57+58.5+___+54?
Sarah – 55.4+59?+__+51.7
Natalie C – 58+58+__+54
Alex W –
Kate D – 57+__+107?+54
Maggie M – 55.5+59low+__+53 mid(relay)… A recent breast 100 effort probably eliminates her!
Kate Douglass can probably go 59.0 in the 100 back so 56.5, 59.0, 1:08, 53.99
Hosszu went 57.8,58.4,1:09, 53.6
Coughlin 57.3,58.9,?,53.3 and let’s take 0.5s across the board because of the time that passed
Sjostrom and Coughlin have no recorded 100 breast times but they both went 31 in the 50 SCM at some point so let’s give them an honourary 1:10?
Walsh has no recent times in the 100s but I’d put her at 58.0, 59.5, 1:06, 53.5
Coughlin probably has a best time in the 100 Breast somewhere. In the late 90’s the urban legend was that she had qualified for every single event at Senior Nationals which is a pretty cool feat. So “if” this is true, she would need to have a 100 time. But it’s before the age of SWIMS.
No record of that in Swim Rankings and I was only born during the last month of the 90’s so idk 🤣
Guessing if she did one, it would be in the 97-98 era with Terrapins before her Cal days. But that’s also why I qualified it with ‘urban legend’
For Summer McIntosh (16 years old), these additions change every 3 months (and quite widely), for the others at their peak already, they do not vary or very little!
Time to update her 4x200s:
229 200 breast this morning!
Again, bodes well for her IM,s.