ARIZONA V. NORTHWESTERN V. NORTHERN ARIZONA
- January 2-3, 2019
- 25 yard (SCY)
- Tucson, AZ
- Results
Day one of two of the Arizona v. Northwestern v. Northern Arizona tri-meet has finished in Tuscon, which saw the anticipated debut of Northwestern freshman Federico Burdisso. The Italian record-holder joined up with the Wildcats mid-season, and today was his first official collegiate race.
Also swimming today was 2012 Olympic 100 backstroke champion Matt Grevers, only he raced in breaststroke this afternoon. In a time trial, Grevers, a Northwestern alum training in Tucson with Ford Dealer Aquatics, popped a 53.24 in the 100 breast. Splitting 25.22 / 28.02, he lopped almost five seconds off of the only time that shows up in the SWIMS database (57.92, from 2009).
For context, his time is a second faster than the NCAA ‘B’ cut, and he would’ve also made the 100 breast B-final at the 2007 NCAA Championships (his senior year, which was the meet he won the 200 back national title). He would’ve won today’s college event by over two seconds.
MEN’S MEET
Current scores
- Arizona 89, Northwestern 78
A 51.7/1:54.3 butterflier in long course, Burdisso is already translating that speed pretty well. He kicked things off by swimming the fly leg on NU’s A 400 medley relay, splitting a 46.86 to push the Wildcats to a big early win as they clocked a 3:15.72 over Arizona’s 3:18.29. NU was led off by sophomore Manu Bacarizo (49.07), followed by freshman Kevin Houseman (54.58), Burdisso, and Aleksa Bobar (45.21). Bobar, a Serbian record-holder, also joined NU mid-season.
For context, Burdisso’s fly split was .3 quicker than NU’s fly leg at the 2019 B1G Champs. In the 200 fly, his best event, he was edged at the wall by Arizona’s Brooks Fail, 1:45.10 to 1:45.27. Fail came back with a 26.34 final 50 to Burdisso’s 27.69. The Italian also posted a 45.97 for sixth in the 100 free, as Arizona completed a 1-2-3 sweep with all three under 45 led by Noah Reid (44.61).
Fail, meanwhile, swam that come-from-behind 200 fly win after winning the mile at the beginning of the session. He was 15:12.34 ahead of NU’s DJ Hwang (15:19.06).
Northwestern’s Bacarizo and Houseman each took an individual event after leading the medley relay. Bacarizo was 49.67 in the 100 back, while Houseman was 55.70 in the 100 breast, going 1-2 with teammate and fellow freshman Markus Mok (56.16).
Arizona wrestled back into control the last two events in the pool, with Etay Gurevich taking the 200 IM (1:51.13) before they took the 200 free relay (1:21.85), just ahead of NU’s 1:22.34. Burdisso was 20.50 leading off for NU.
NU’s Yohan Eskrick won the 1-meter in 306.60, but Arizona leads a tight one going into day two.
WOMEN’S MEET
Current scores
- Northwestern 125, Arizona 39
- Arizona 106, NAU 58
- Northwestern 129, NAU 37
While the men’s meet is close, the Northwestern women were by far the better Wildcats this afternoon, winning every single event but the 100 free. That event went to Northern Arizona, with Elisa Rodriguez going 50.89 to win by nearly a full second.
NU got off to a great start, nearly 1-2-3’ing the 400 medley relay with a 1-2-4 finish led by their A in 3:40.75 and their B in 3:46.78. Arizona A was 3:48.87 and NU C was 3:49.57. Calypso Sheridan built a huge lead for the A with a 54.51 lead-off, while Hannah Brunzell (1:01.39), Miriam Guevara (53.62), and Malorie Han (51.23) followed. Sophie Angus was also 1:01.79 to lift the B past Arizona.
Sheridan won two individuals, first going 54.40 in the 100 back and then 2:05.49 in the 200 IM. NU went 1-2-3 in the 200 IM, with Brunzell (2:06.34) and Ilektra Lebl (2:06.54) behind Sheridan.
Brunzell and Lebl would each snag an individual win of their own tonight. Brunzell (1:02.08) and Angus (1:03.42) went 1-2 in the 100 breast, while Lebl won the mile by over ten seconds (16:32.56).
Northwestern’s most dominant performance was in the 200 fly, were they went 1-2-3-4. Guevara led in 2:00.74, followed by Jasmine Hellmer (2:03.88) and freshmen Roza Erdemli (2:04.41) and Ally Larson (2:05.06).
The 200 free relay went to the ‘Cats (1:33.63) by a hair over Arizona (1:33.91), led off by Sheridan’s 23.50, and Markie Hopkins (274.85) and Labonita Ghose (267.50) went 1-2 on the 3-meter board.
Grevers and all the powerful guys can survive in a 100 breast in the bathtub. Dressel has already been very fast in that event in SCY. Manaudou would do very well too. It doesn’t mean they are breaststrokers. In LCM you can’t lie about your stroke and it would be a very different story.
Burdisso will undoubtedly be a great addition to Northwestern, and I’d been looking forward to seeing him compete at NCAA’s, but this is a strange time for a medal contender to begin his college career, seven months before the Olympics.
Yeah, it doesn’t seem like a great time to move a quarter-turn around the globe, adjust to a new environment, and start a new training program.
pair of good recruits and program is on the rise.
Burdisso and Houseman are for real. Kipp has started to turn this thing around.
Maybe Northwestern will be relevant again for the first time since the storied days of Grevers/Bubolz/Alexandrov.
Nice to see him finally race for Northwestern. Grevers’ breaststroke time seems to have come out of nowhere, how much was he training breast?
Also, two teams of Wildcats are competing here. That’s cool. Burdisso is helping Northwestern keep it surprisingly close for the men. I’m going to guess that Northwestern at least gets a vote for the next Power Rankings (coming up soon!)
He’s done a couple 24 low 50s at Masters Nationals over the past half decade.
24.39 and 24.35. If memory serves, at 2015 Nats he took maybe 5 strokes for the 50!
I was a couple heats behind him getting ready to swim my own 50 breast…I took slightly more strokes than he did and went *slightly* slower… 😀
That’s what the SWIMS database says.
I’m hoping he come to Nats this year so I can catch a draft off of him since I didn’t get to go to Mesa last spring.
Ah, crap. He’ll be 35… out of my age group.
He swam the 50 breast in a 26 at one of the ISL meets so not completely out of the blue I guess
When grevers is only about 2 seconds away from world class breaststrokers…
the US Men’s 100 breast is truly wide open in 2020. Darkhorse
As much as I would love that, I would imagine he swam most of the 100 underwater. I don’t know if he would be successful long course. I hope I’m proven wrong though.
Grevers could be a world class 100 IMer.
Speaking of, why didn’t the ISL have a 100 IM?
The ISL should totally have the 100IM! It’s a fun event to swim and watch
I would love this.
100 IM
Skins
OMG yes
100 IM Skins would be my dream. So much strategy involved!
Please make this happen!
He swam a 1:04.77 LCM back in 2011 at the Indianapolis Grand Prix. Not exactly setting the world on fire with that time, but not slow either. And it was just a Grand Prix done in the middle of March so not like he would have been really tapered for anything either.
Back or breast?
Try reading that again, this time more slowly.
right, well they said back… but given the context of the discussion and the time, i think they meant breast…
Does Matt Grevers technically swim a 100 breast or does he just do one huge a dolphin kick & a lumberjack pull each lap?
Try putting a pause after “LCM”.
I meant “back” as in timewise, not “back” as in backstroke. So to clarify, “Back in 2011, Grevers swam a 1:04.77 in the 100 Breastroke at the Indianapolis Grand Prix”.
yea and seemingly everyone got that.. except some red names lol
I remember he swam one of the breast event in ISL meet.
Wow the Arizona women are struggling nowadays
Perhaps the Northwestern women are JUST that good…
The Busch effect
Men will fail too. One swimmer will keep the facade looking real just like he had at Virginia (clearly Leah does need a coach, neither does Fails). Arizona swimming is over and everyone that sweat for this program should be upset.