In a significant shift in schedule from previous years, the 2015 YMCA Short Course National Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina began on Monday with a distance-only day, racing the men’s and women’s 1000 freestyle in a separate session from Tuesday’s kickoff to the meat of the action.
15-year old York YMCA swimmer Courtney Harnish, who despite still being so young feels like she’s been dominating this meet forever, successfully defended her title in the girls’ 1000 free with a 9:33.93 – over a second improvement from her winning time last year.
She was locked in a battle with Cassy Jernberg of the Schroeder YMCA for the first 600 yards, but, Harnish at that point turned on another gear, while her opponent’s splits held steady, to win by almost five seconds. Jernberg took 2nd in 9:38.51, and Abbey Erwin of the Downtown Boise YMCA was 3rd in 9:47.74.
In the men’s race, the revived Sarasota YMCA distance group took a 1-2-3 finish after having just one swimmer in the top 8 at last year’s meet. The leader for the group was Drew Clark, who came in seeded at 9:12 but wound up winning in 9:00.14. He was followed by teammates Daniel Erlenmey (9:03.04) and Carter Page (9:05.04). All three swimmers are 17-years old, though Clark and Erlenmey are just high school juniors while Page is a senior commitment to Northwestern.
Full meet results, including heat sheets and streaming video, are available here.