Distance Standout Chris Nagy Announces Verbal Commitment to Minnesota

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Chris Nagy, a USA Swimming Scholastic All-American from San Diego, California, has announced his verbal commitment to the University of Minnesota for 2020-21. He swims for Team Elite out of San Diego and attends University City High School.

“I am so excited to announce my verbal commitment to swim and study at the University of Minnesota! The moment I stepped on campus and met the coaches and the team, I knew it was a perfect fit for me. Go Gophers!”

Nagy specializes in distance freestyle and excels at the longer end of the range. He made impressive strides this summer in long-course season, most notably dropping 30 seconds in the 1500 free at Summer Juniors to place 11th with 15:45.83. In the 400 free, he was 5 seconds faster than he’d been in the summer of 2018, finishing 60th with 4:04.53. He also dropped 9.2 seconds in the 800 free and came in 20th. Nagy competes in the 200/500 freestyles in high school. He won the 500 free (4:32.03) and placed 9th in the 200 free (1:44.58) at 2019 CIF San Diego Section Division 2 Championships. Both were best times and both represented significant improvements over his sophomore-year high school championships. In 2018 he’d gone PBs of 1:47.37 and 4:40.45, respectively. Nagy’s best times in the 1000/1650 freestyles came at 2019 Carlsbad Sectionals; he came in 4th in the former with 9:18.99 and 3rd in the latter with 15:32.74. Again, those were big improvements over his times from the same meet in 2018. There, he had finished 17th in the 1000 (9:37.65) and 9th in the 1650 (15:57.70).

Nagy will suit up for the Golden Gophers with Antonio Octaviano, Brock Aune, Cameron Linder, Casey Stowe, Kaiser Neverman, Leo Goldblatt, Nathan Kim, and William Christenson. Nagy is the first pure distance swimmer of the group, although Goldblatt is strong in the mile (15:36.18) and Christenson had a good showing in the 400 free at Summer Juniors (4:04.54 for 61st place, just one behind Nagy).

With Michigan and Indiana dominating distance freestyle at the conference level, Minnesota is looking to gain more of a foothold those events at B1Gs. Cameron Kelley, now a junior, went 15:07.86 to place 8th in the 1650 at the 2019 conference championships. Then-seniors Michael Messner and Nick Plachinski scored at 13th and 18th, while sophomore Aidan Dillon was 23rd (15:25.81). In the 500, Plachinski was the only scorer, coming in 19th with 4:22.66. Also competing in the 500 were Kelley (26th), Dillon (30th), current juniors Max Lezer (31st) and Kristian Hansen (38th), current senior Nicholas Saulnier (39th), and Messner (44th).

Nagy’s top times:

• SCY 500: 4:32.03
• LCM 400: 4:04.53
• SCY 1000: 9:18.99
• LCM 800: 8.20.06
• SCY 1650: 15:32.74
• LCM 1500: 15:45.83

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