Brenna Ruth, a senior captain of the Saint Andrew’s high school swim team in Florida, has verbally committed to Florida State.
Given what Florida State, who despite a staff turnover still employs sprint coach Andy Robbins, has done with in-state sprint recruits on their women’s team in the last few years, this could become a very, very good signing.
She has yards bests of 23.80 and 51.74 in the 50 and 100 yard freestyles, and is about as good in long course where this summer she was a 27.0 and 58.8.
Ruth, while she’s very good in her individual races, has built her legacy at the impressive Saint Andrew’s high school and club teams on being a huge relay factor. At NCSA’s in the spring, she split 50.5 and 50.6 in a pair of 400 relay anchor swims, in 2012 she was on two Florida 1A State Champion relays (200 medley & 400 free – the latter of which was a state record), and as a sophomore she swam on 5 relays as the Saint Andrew’s School won the USA Swimming Junior National girls’ team title.
Again, that relay skill makes her a good comparison to someone like Kaitlyn Dressel, who at NCAA’s last year demonstrated an impressive ability to be much, much faster on relays than she was on flat-starts.
Like Dressel and Tiffany Oliver, Ruth was a team captain in high school, and like Dressel and Oliver Ruth is tall, but not a super-tall, sprinter (Oliver and Dressel are both listed at 5’9, which is about how tall Ruth appears to be). This sounds like a near-perfect fit, based on Florida State’s history.
Welcome to the team!!! CONGRATS!