Texas A&M’s Shaine Casas Swims 3:37 in 400 IM at American SC Champs

2020 AMERICAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS

• March 5-7, 2020
• Austin, Texas
• Short Course Yards
• Results

Texas A&M sophomore Shaine Casas swam a new lifetime best of 3:37.59 in finals of the men’s 400 IM on Friday at the American Short Course Swimming Championships.

The meet, hosted at the University of Texas, is not a formal national championship meet, in spite of the implication of the name, and has shrunk from what was once a big meet that combined club and collegiate swimmers looking for last-chance NCAA qualifying swims to primarily the latter, albeit still swum across a 3-day format.

Casas has already qualified for the NCAA Championship meet. He’s currently the fastest swimmer in the NCAA in both the 200 back (1:37.20) and 200 IM (1:39.91), and he also ranks 3rd nationally in the 100 back (44.48).

His 400 IM swim on Friday now also ranks him 2nd nationally in that event behind only Florida sophomore Kieran Smith, who won the SEC title in 3:37.31.

400 IM: 3:37.59 – Lifted and regular practice this week #BeTheDifference #12thMan 👍🏽 pic.twitter.com/bM1WGqIMhY

— Jason Calanog (@jasoncalanog) March 7, 2020

For Casas, a US National Teamer, the 100 back, 200 back, and 200 IM seem like his most likely NCAA Championship events. That being said, the A&M coaches made a surprise switch last year and switched him to the 100 and 200 fly instead of the 100 and 200 back at the NCAA Championship meet. The 400 IM falls on day 3 of the NCAA Championship meet: the same day as the 100 back.

Casas’ previous best time in the 400 yard IM was a 3:42.31 swum at this same meet last year. He only has 4 official results in the race in the USA Swimming database; prior to last year, his previous swim in the event came in 2013 when he was only 13-years old. He has no recent swims of the event in long course.

Race Video:

Casas’ swim makes him the 14th-best 400 yard IMer in the history of the event.

The time also crushes the Texas A&M school record of 3:42.29 that was set by Ben Walker at this meet last year. Casas now holds school records in 5 individual events.

Full Meet Recap to Follow:

Texas Ryan Harty, who has already qualified for NCAAs this season but didn’t swim at Big 12s last week, competed in the 100 back. Harty raced to a 45.85, coming from behind to beat teammate Preston Varozza (46.14). Harty’s season best is a 45.10 from the Minnesota Invite in November.

BYU’s Katie McBratney was within tenths of her best, winning the 100 breast in 1:02.25. Her best still stands as a 1:01.42 from the Mizzou Invite in November. Teammate Josue Dominguez won the men’s race, posting a 52.77 to clip a little over a tenth off his best time.

In a time trial, Iowa’s Anze Fers Erzen dropped about 4 tenths from his season best in the 200 back. He was previously 33rd in the NCAA. His 1:41.24 tonight moves him up to 24th. The Pac-12 men will compete in the event in tomorrow, so we’ll have to see where he lands following that meet.

Additional Event Winners

• W. 100 Fly: Noelle Kaufmann, BAD, 54.26
• M. 100 Fly: Sergey Kuznetsov, IOWA, 46.99
• W. 200 Free: Caroline Pennington, BAD, 1:53.87
• M. 200 Free: Kaloyan Bratanov, TAMU, 1:34.58
• W. 100 Back: Noelle Kaufmann, BAD, 54.11