Michigan Women Hit NCAA “A” Cut; Jack Dahlgren Hits NCAA Leading Times in Tri

Purdue vs. Michigan vs. Missouri (November Triple Dual)

• November 5, 2021
• Morgan J. Burke Aquatic Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
• Short Course Yards (25 yards)
• Meet Results (PDF)
• Team Scores:
  • Michigan M 192 def. Purdue M 107
  • Michigan M 193 def. Missouri M 106
  • Missouri M 160 def. Purdue M 139
  • Michigan W 232 def. Purdue W 68
  • Michigan W 215 def. Missouri W 85
  • Missouri W 179 def. Purdue W 121

The Michigan Wolverines rolled into West Lafayette on Friday afternoon and dominated three-legged dual meets against Purdue and Missouri. On both the men’s and women’s sides, Missouri won the rubber match ahead of the hosts Purdue.

Author’s note: Michigan, Purdue, and Missouri were all wearing technical racing suits for the meet.

Women’s Recap

The Wolverine women were on fire throughout the meet, winning all but 3 events on the day.

That began with a 1:36.25 in the 200 medley relay, which is an NCAA Automatic Qualifying Time and ranks them 3rd in the country this season behind only Virginia and USC.

Splits:

• Maggie MacNeil, backstroke – 23.82
• Letitia Sim, breaststroke – 27.12
• Olivia Carter, fly – 23.76
• Lindsay Flynn, free – 21.55

Hitting that NCAA “A” standard early takes pressure off the Wolverine women, allowing them to qualify the remainder of their relays to the NCAA Championship meet with only “B” standards.

This is a very different-looking medley relay than the one that placed 16th at last year’s NCAA Championship meet. That relay last season was very young and had four underclassmen, but Michigan appears to be ready to replace two of those legs anyway. Freshman Letitia Sim‘s breaststroke split is already 8-tenths better than what then-sophomore Mariella Venter did at NCAAs last season, and freshman Lindsay Flynn‘s 21.55 freestyle split is already 1.25 seconds better than what then-sophomore Megan Glass did at NCAAs last season.

Those two freshman additions had other big swims throughout the day too. Sim won the 100 breaststroke in 59.77, beating-out Purdue’s Masy Folcik by 1.10 seconds; and later won the 200 breaststroke in a dominant 2:10.06. She has been better in both races this season, at the SMU Classic.

Flynn also picked up a victory via swimming a season-best in the 100 free in 48.70. That’s the first individual collegiate victory for the former Winter Juniors Champion. She later almost repeated that time with a 48.71 on a 400 free relay. Michigan’s 400 free relay isn’t as good as its medleys this season, but a 48.59 anchor from sophomore Claire Newman helps a lot. Newman also swam 22.62 and 49.30 in the flat-start 50 and 100 yard freestyles, both of which are new lifetime bests, after big long course drops over the summer.

Flynn likewise posted a season-best in the 50 free in 22.62, but there she only finished 3rd, racing behind two of the fastest women in the NCAA.

The event was won by Missouri’s Sarah Thompson in 22.08, and Michigan’s MacNeil placed 2nd in 22.22. MacNeil was 2nd and Thompson was 3rd in the event at last year’s NCAA Championship meet, and MacNeil beat-out Thompson in the pair’s prior matchup this season at the SMU Classic.

Thompson was a double winner on the day to give the Missouri women their only two victories of the event. She also won the 100 fly in 52.16, which is a new personal best for her. That cut four-tenths off her previous best time of 52.57 from last season’s mid-season Missouri Invitational, and now ranks her 3rd all-time in Missouri program history.

Thompson swam the 100 backstroke as her third event, along with the sprint freestyles, at last year’s NCAA Championship meet, but regularly swims the 100 fly at in-season events.

Other Women’s Event Winners:

• Michigan’s Kaitlyn Sims won the 1000 free in 9:42.66 ahead of freshman teammate Kate Shanley (9:52.10). That’s the first 1000 free of the season for Sims, who placed 5th at NCAAs in the 1650 last season. That swim is the fastest in the NCAA so far this season, pending other Friday results (it’s .05 faster than Emma Weyant swam at the Virginia-Texas meet on Friday).
• Later in the 500 free, Kathryn Ackerman swam 4:42.58 to win, beating out Sims by four seconds. That’s Ackerman’s personal best, and followed another personal best at the meet in the 200 free, which she also won in 1:46.16. Her previous best time in the 200 free was a 1:47.17 done in high school, and her previous best in the 500 free was a 4:54 from her freshman year of high school. In spite of that early potential, last year as a Michigan freshman she focused on the 400 IM, where she finished 7th at NCAAs, and swam the 200 back as well, where she was just 46th.
• Maggie MacNeil, the defending NCAA and Olympic Champion (and fastest ever in yards) in the 100 fly, won the 100 back in 51.46. She still hasn’t swum a butterfly race yet this season for the Wolverines. There’s a lot of speculation about her untapped backstroke potential (she’s the fastest-ever in the 50 yard backstroke), and whether she might choose the 100 back as a 3rd event at NCAAs this season over one of the sprint freestyles.
• Another Michigan NCAA Champion, Olivia Carter, did swim her primary event, the 200 fly, and she dominated in 1:55.91. That’s a new season-best for her and ranks her in the top 10 in the NCAA so far. She was later 2nd in the 100 fly in 52.49, finishing behind Thompson, and won the 200 IM in 1:57.44, ahead of Ackerman.
• Mariella Venter, who was pressed into breaststroke duty at NCAAs last year as previously mentioned, is able to refocus on her primary backstroke races this season. That includes the 200 back, where she placed 12th at NCAAs last year, and where she won on Friday in 1:56.49.
• Michigan’s Allie Klein won the women’s 3-meter diving, while Purdue’s Emily Pfeiffer won the 1-meter event. That was the Purdue women’s only win on the day.

Men’s Meet Recap

Michigan senior Will Chan remained on-fire this season in the Wolverines’ dominant tri-meet performance, winning the 100 breaststroke in 52.36.

Along with his 52.14 from the SMU Classic, he now has the two fastest NCAA 100 yard breaststrokes of the season.

In that race, he beat-out Missouri’s top breaststroker Ben Patton (53.48). That was a reversal of last year’s NCAA Championship finish, where Patton was 12th and Chan was 13th.

U.S. Olympian Patrick Callan won both the 200 free (1:35.04) and 500 free (4:21.26), though he was faster in both events at the team’s season-opener: the SMU Classic.

They were among a number of individual winners for the Michigan men on the day, though overall their times weren’t as startling as the women. The Purdue and Missouri men got in a few more shots than their female counterparts as well.

For Purdue, that included Serbian senior Nikola Acin, won won the 50 free in 19.53 and the 100 free in 43.34. Those are both whopping season-bests for him: he was only 20.17 in his previous 50 free this year, in the team’s opener against Minnesota.

Acin now is the top-ranked swimmer in the Big Ten in the 50 free this season ahead of Ohio State Olympian Hunter Armstrong (19.56), pending the rest of Friday’s results. Acin also ranks 3rd nationally this season.

He also split 42.30 on the anchor leg of Purdue’s 400 free relay as they almost ran-down the winning Missouri relay. That Missouri relay, which beat Purdue 2:53.23-2:53.59, was led off by Jack Dahlgren in 42.76.

Dahlgren already had the best time in the country in the 100 free, and he’s still the only swimmer to break 43 seconds (he’s now done so twice).

Dahlgren also won the 100 back (46.58) and 200 back (1:40.97) on Friday, both also season bests. That 200 back puts him more than a second ahead of anybody else in the NCAA this season, and is already within six-tenths of what he swam at NCAAs last year. That should secure Dahlgren’s NCAA qualification early in the season, giving him some freedom about pacing the rest of his training.

Other Men’s Meet Winners:

• Another US Olympian, Michigan sophomore Jake Mitchell, won the 1000 free in 9:03.82. He was 2nd in the 500 free, the closest race to the 400 where he qualified for Tokyo, but in 4:25.88 was 8 seconds slower than he was at the SMU Classic.
• Gal Groumi, an Israeli Olympian who is the jewel of Michigan’s freshman class, won the men’s 200 fly in 1:44.31. That’s his first collegiate win in any event.
• Michigan’s AJ Bornstein won the 200 breaststroke in 1:57.00, edging-out his aforementioned teammate Chan, who placed 2nd in 1:57.08. Chan was 1.7 seconds ahead of Bornstein at the 100 yard mark, but Bornstein ran him down in the final 50 for the victory. Purdue’s Coleman Modglin placed 3rd in 1:57.45, which is three-and-a-half seconds faster than he was in his last outing.
• Missouri picked up another win via Danny Kovac in the 100 fly. He swam 46.14, beating out Groumi’s 46.50. Kovac has been 45.77 in the event this season. Purdue freshman Brady Samuels placed 3rd in 47.07, which now ranks him 6th all-time in program history.
• Michigan’s Jared Daigle had a rousing four-second margin of victory in the 400 IM, touching in 3:48.25.