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Sandpipers Emery, Houck sweep distance events at SMOC day 1

Opening night of the 2015 Fran Crippen Swim Meet of Champions (SMOC) saw a pair of Sandpipers of Nevada teammates sweep the wins in lifetime-best efforts.

The first day of the long-running California meet featured the girls 800 free and the boys 1500.

17-year-old Erin Emery kicked things off by taking the girls event in 8:42.96. That’s just about a second and a half away from a lifetime-best for the graduated high school senior, who will swim for the Minnesota Gophers next fall.

Her Sandpipers of Nevada teammate Erica Sullivan was second in 8:44.63. At just 14 years old, Sullivan had a monster drop in that race to earn second from outside of the fastest-seeded heat.

In fact, Sullivan had yet to break 9 minutes in her career prior to tonight. Her previous best was a 9:00.37 from last summer’s Junior Nationals. But on Thursday night of SMOC, she crushed that time by over 15 seconds.

Sullivan should be set up to have a whale of a meet the rest of the weekend, too. She was 4:20.24 to her feet at the 400, which would have smashed five seconds off her best swim in that individual event.

Third place went to Allie Davis, swimming unattached, in 8:46.11.

It was another Nevada Sandpiper who won the boys race, with 18-year-old Logan Houck picking up the win. His 15:21.42 was a lifetime-best for him by five seconds as well.

It was an incredibly tight race, with Nitro’s Sean Grieshop actually leading early by a sizable margin. But Houck started to charge after about the 1000-mark, running down Grieshop to take the narrow win by about half a second. The 16-year-old Grieshop was 15:22.03 for second.

Mission Viejo 18-year-old Nick Norman took third in 15:32.70.

The Fran Crippen Swim Meet of Champions is named in honor of former Mission Viejo open water star Fran Crippen, who passed away during a competition in 2010. The meet continues through Sunday.

Full results are available on Meet Mobile.

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About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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