The 2012 portion of the college swimming schedule kicked off this weekend with several top teams in action. Typically, it’s difficult to get much of a read off of meets like this, because most teams are coming straight off of heavy holiday training, but when two powerhouse programs like Texas and Georgia clash coming off of winter training the results can be very interesting.
Texas Women 155, Georgia Women 145
The Texas women topped Georgia by ten, handing the Bulldog women their first dual-meet loss since 2010 (18-straight wins). When looking at a historical comparison, the result was not surprising, despite the fact that Georgia won this dual last year. Texas is typically faster than Georgia in their first meet coming out of winter break, and though Georgia won last year, this meet was held a week later in the schedule. Beyond that, comparing historical times makes this result very encouraging for the Texas women. They were overall, a good chunk faster than they were at this same time last season.
Karlee Bispo was the star for Texas, taking three individual wins in each of the short freestyles. That includes wins in the 50 free (22.91), the 100 free (49.52) and 200 free (1:46.73). Her mark in that 200 free from the Texas Invite in December leads the country, and she’s the fastest in both the 100 and 200 free early into the 2nd-half of this season. At this point, it feels safe to declare her as “favorite” in the 200 free headed towards the conference championship meets.
In both the 100 and 200, Georgia’s star Megan Romano was in 2nd, though well back. She swam the same trio as did Bispo, with marks of 23.41/50.26/1:48.06. Those are probably a touch slower than expected from her, though the Bulldogs are in very heavy training.
The Longhorns also got a nice comeback meet from Leah Gingrich, who struggled through a pair of swims at Texas’ December rest meet. She took victory in the 200 fly in 1:59.63, and was runner-up to Georgia sophomore Melanie Margalis in the 400 IM in 4:16.52. Those times put her right on par (or significantly faster in the 400 IM) than she was at this time last year.
Margalis’ winning time of 4:12.97 in that 400 IM was extremely impressive. That’s a very fast time for this early in January.
The most exciting races were the 500 and 1000 freestyles. They pitted two freshman sensations (Amber McDermott of Georgia, Kaitlin Pawlowicz of Texas) against one of the most dominant milers in NCAA history (senior Wendy Trott of Georgia).
In the 500, the future bested the past, as McDermott slid past her teammate Trott in the final strokes of the race to take a win in 4:45.82. Trott was 2nd in 4:45.85, and Pawlowicz was 3rd in 4:50.67. That time for McDermott is about 11 seconds slower than she was at the Georgia Invite in early December, which shows that the Bulldogs were likely well-rested for that meet. Comparatively for Trott, this is a very strong swim (she gets better the longer the races go).
Proof of that came in the 1000 free earlier in the meet that Trott won in 9:45.41, with Pawlowicz 2nd in 9:48.75 and McDermott 3rd in 9:51.04.
The race was very even through the halfway mark, but as Pawlowicz’s splits hung around in the 29.5-29.6 range, Trott dropped her 50’s to 29.2’s-29.3’s. After 10 laps, that adds up to a decent-sized victory.
The 200 medley relay was by far the Bulldogs’ weakest last year. They finished 13th in the race at NCAA’s, compared to Cal’s top spot – which more than accounted for the difference in the point total at last year’s NCAA Championships. Head coach Jack Bauerle brought in a freshman class clearly with an eye towards improving his medleys, and though they’ve given a good foundation, they’re still three-freshman to this top sprint medley.
The Longhorns, on the other hand, have a very deep, and somewhat more experienced, sprint crew. They rode this to a 1-2 finish in the race, including a top time 1:41.14 (with Georgia’s top group in 1:41.80).
In the closing 400 free relay, with the meet already out of contention, the Bulldogs had a little payback with a 1-2 victory of their own, including a top-finish of 3:21.84.
A nice bonus for the Bulldogs came from Ann-Perry Blank’s win on the 1-meter diving. The Bulldogs have been historically weak in diving, but with that score Blank is approaching an NCAA-point-scoring total on the 1-meter. Texas All-American diver Maren Tayl0r likely sidelined for the season with an injury, which is a hit to their hopes in March.
Texas Men 160, Georgia Men 125
Both teams came into this meet in clearly heavy training, but the Longhorns were dominant in this meet with a 35-point win.
The swims overall for both squads were hit-and-miss, but there were some bright spots. Without Jackson Wilcox swimming at this meet, Michael McBroom was left to fight for the 1000 free title against the totality of the impressive Georgia distance group. He was very successful in doing as such in the 1000 free, which he won in 9:05.52 – the 2nd-best time in the country this year and McBroom’s career-best (keeping in mind that most rest meets feature 1650’s, not 1000’s). His initial challenge came from Martin Grodzki of Georgia, who was the runner-up at last year’s NCAA Championships in the mile (behind McBroom.
But Grodzki had a disastrous last 200 yards, and finished 9-seconds back in 9:14.05 (he was roughly 8 seconds slower than McBroom in the last 4 laps after being even through 800 yards). Meanwhile, his teammates Andrew Gemmell (9:07.03) and Will Freeman (9:09.15) took 2nd and 3rd, respectively.
Grodzki had much better success in the McBroom-less 500 free to win in 4:26.48 later in the meet. Gemmell was in 2nd in 4:27.04, and Texas freshman Jake Ritter was impressive for 3rd in 4:27.62.
Texas sprint freestyler Jimmy Feigen won both the 50 and the 100 freestyles, but his 50 time of 19.94 was much stronger than his 45.02 in the 100 free. He would have a much better 100-free swim in the meet-ending 400 free relay with a 43.72 on a rolling-start.
One of the big concerns for this year’s Texas program was where their sprint breaststroker was going to come from for the medley relays. They’ve got great 200 breaststrokers, but no proven sprinter. Eric Friedland won the 100 in 55.47 – which is a solid time for him this time of year. In the 200 medley specifically, Friedland split a 25.26, and Matt Hoyland had a bit of a breakout swim with his own split of 25.35. Hoyland also took 3rd in the 100 breaststroke in 56.48, which is a phenomenal January time for him. He’s a name to keep watch on for the next 2 months.
And finally, there was no surprise as Texas’ divers Matt Cooper and Drew Livingston were spectacular, with Cooper winning the 3-meter in a huge 444, and Livingston taking the 1-meter. Having two top divers at this level (where teams are potentially using all of their Championship roster spots) is a huge luxury, and no contender has a duo close to this good.
Full results for both men’s and women’s meets.
dax hill right behind eric and matt in the 50 breaststroke splits: 25.4
I’m assuming that’s Jimmy Feigen winning the 50 and 100, Braden? 😉
Where was Wilcox?
Womens results do not surprise me. UT and UGA women’s training is very different, one reason why UT women have always swum fast in season but dont have the drops come NCAA time.