The Aquajets from suburban Minneapolis, and not farm from the University of Minnesota campus, are about two years away from flooding the college recruiting market with a ton of top-20 female talent.
In the near-term, though, they still have a lot of very good swimmers moving through their system, and the Gophers continue to be the geographical beneficiaries of much of that, including their latest verbal from Rae Bullinger.
Bullinger is a breastroker, primarily of the sprint variety, who has been 1:02.44 and 2:19.47 in yards, both at the end of her junior season.
She really hit her best times at NCSA’s in March, as compared to the Minnesota High School State Championship meet, where she placed only 7th in late 2012. She has the speed, however, to contend for that state title this year as a senior if she focuses there instead.
Bullinger swims for Hopkins High School, who didn’t send a medley relay to the state meet, so its a little bit of a challenge to get a full read on her 50 breaststroke potential. She was, however, a 28.59 from a flat-start at NCSA’s last year.
She should serve as a great compliment to sophomore Kierra Smith, whose best race is the 200 breaststroke, in what looks like it could be a very similar situation that the Gophers had a few years ago with Jillian Tyler and Haley Spencer, which they rode to a top-10 finish at NCAA’s.
Minnesota picked up signees out of the high school classes of 2010 and 2011 from the Aquajets, but in 2012 and 2013 didn’t get any. Now is a very good time to try and establish a little bit of a pipeline there.