Houston Heads North On Highway 6 To Square Off Against Texas A&M Aggies
The Texas A&M Aggies will unofficially get their season underway this week–their first meet was the ASA Open Water competition that they dominated–against their neighbors to the south the Houston Cougars. This meet will take place on Tuesday at 6 PM Eastern Time in College Station.
A&M should largely dominate this meet, though their young breaststrokers (they graduated NCAA 200 yard champion Alia Atkinson, and a slew of other breaststrokers) will get a good challenge from Houston’s Beccy HIllis. Hillis, who hails from Scotland, is a four-time British Junior Champion, and has gone a solid 2:20 already this season.
The real showdown here will be in the diving. A&M’s Jaele Patrick is coming off of a bronze medal on the 3-meter representing Australia in the Commonwealth Games, and Houston’s Lacey Truelove, who finaled on both the 3-meter and platform at NCAA’s last year.
This meet will serve as a good tuneup for the Aggies, as it is their only meet before their big Lone Star showdown against Texas on November 5th.
Southwest Collegiate Plunge
This is going to be one of the best on the weekend as all three Big 12 men’s teams (Texas, Texas A&M, and Missouri), along with perennial mid-major powers TCU and SMU travel to Dallas (Mansfield, specifically) to participate in the second-annual Southwest Collegiate Plunge (apparently renamed this season to the Southwest Collegiate Invitational, but I still prefer the “plunge” moniker) .
This will be our first chance to see the defending National Champion Texas Longhorns, who are moving on after the graduation of a strong, leadership-heavy senior class that included Ricky Berens, Dave Walter, and Hill Taylor.
The big race that I will be looking forward to is the 200 free relay. A&M has reloaded their sprint core in a big way, including incoming Canadian Kyle Troskott and Swede Henrik Lindau. Texas is of course led by Jimmy Feigen, and it will be interesting to see who his supporting cast is this season. Hopefully, it includes sophomore Dax Hill, who is on the verge of a major breakout. The Missouri Tigers, led for the first time by long-time Arizona assistant Greg Rhodenbaugh, have already put up a 1:23.65 this season, the fourth-best mark in school history. Their relay is book-ended by two stellar seniors in Roko Simunic and Jordan Hawley.
SMU and TCU will be in the mix here as well, with SMU putting up a 1:23.89 against Air Force, bolstered by a 20.29 anchor from Mindaugus Sadauskas. The Horned Frogs relay will be anchored by Devin Price, who has flat-started a 21.5 this season already.
It’s not clear what format will be used this season. Last year, the meet was separated into an A-final and a B-final (without prelims), with each of the four participating schools getting two entries in each. This season, with TCU added to the mix, it’s unclear how they will swing it. The facility is an outstanding one, despite being a high school pool, and has a 50-meter tank. It’s possible that they will extend the course to 10-lanes and keep the same format, which would be an interesting twist.
This meet is a prelims-finals meet that will take place at 6:00 PM on Friday and continue at Noon on Saturday. Admission is free, so if you’re in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, this is a great opportunity to see some fast swimming.
Kansas Women Travel to Columbia, Missouri for Border Battle
The Kansas and Missouri women’s squads will face off in a dual meet on Friday at 6 PM.
The Jayhawks are 0-3 early this season, after being swept at the brutal Arizona Quad duals two weeks ago. The biggest impression made by Kansas was from their young distance swimmers, freshman Alison Moffit and sophomore Rebecca Swank. They took second and third, respectively, in the 1000 at that meet, with times of 10:04 and 10:06.
The Missouri women are 1-1 on the year, with a tight loss to a fast-rising Kentucky team, and a solid win over Southern Illinois. Sophomore Dominique Bouchard is the future of this program, and earned three victories in that tri meet, the most impressive of which being a 56.59 in the 100 back.
The Nebraska women are the only Big 12 team not in action this weekend.