Whatever the Minnesota Golden Gophers women’s team did when hosting recruits this weekend, they need to do more of it. Kelly Kremer’s squad has picked up its 3rd verbal commitment in the last 24 hours with Maggie Werba giving her pledge on Monday morning.
Werba, who unlike her two classmates Chantal Nack and Kaia Grobe, comes from outside of the state of Minnesota. Werba swims for the Oshkosh YMCA Dolphins and Oshkosh West High School in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. She and Grobe were both on their recruiting trips to Minneapolis this past weekend.
Werba’s list of best events, when counting races in which she has at least Winter Nationals cuts in yards, are sort of a peculiar lot. She’s been 1:49.69 in the 200 free, 2:16.57 in the 200 breast, and 55.72 in the 100 fly.
While that’s sort of an odd combination of events, it also shows off Werba’s versatility, and with a different focus, she could probably excel in complementary events to any of those as well even more than she does. That includes the 100 free (51.86), the 100 breast (1:04.92). and 200 fly (2:04.42).
Kremer is going to have an interesting time deciding where exactly to take Werba in her four years in Minneapolis. Instinctively, it seems that given Minnesota’s background with the breaststrokes (Kierra Smith was 6th at NCAA’s last year in the 200 breast, and before her the team developed Haley Spencer and Jillian Tyler to NCAA titles). Kremer could also work on improving Werba’s backstroke though and make her an IM’er.
With Minnesota finally starting to see some graduations out of their freestyle group that has carried their relays for so long, though, Webra’s abilities in the middle distance freestyles can’t be ignored either.
Regardless, any swimmer who is athletic enough to be equally-good in such vastly different events has a great future in college swimming, and should make the Minnesota coaching staff rather excited.
I know that swimming in Indiana and the Oshkosh area of Wisconsin are VERY competitive, and I know that Attleboro Bluefish where the Zeiger sisters who swim for Minnesota trained in Massachusetts is one of the best clubs in New England, so it looks to me like the Minnesota Gophers is a “swimmers who know about swimming” kind of team! I will be rooting for them to do well at NCAA’s!