Italian National, but Bolles School (Florida) based, Andrea Vergani has verbally committed to the Cal Golden Bears. He’s the beginning of a badly-needed rebuilding of sprint depth for the 2015 NCAA runners-up, and the 10th-ranked recruit in the high school class of 2016 among Americans.
While the freestyler races are Vegani’s best, he’s got times that would make him worthy of being called a butterfly or breaststroke recruit as well.
Best in yards:
- 50 free – 20.04
- 100 free – 43.91
- 200 free – 1:38.28
- 100 breast – 55.89
- 100 fly – 49.38
- 200 IM – 1:50.38
Vergani arrived in the United States last fall, and in just that short time has already seen big improvements in his short course results. He’s also improved some in long course when he went back for the Italian National Championships this summer, but not as significantly as in short course. So far, he’s managed to dip under 23 seconds (22.96) in the 50 free, which will start to put him on the Italian radar for senior National Teams.
He’s the third-fastest 50 yard freestyler in the class (behind 19.90 Albert Gwo and 19.95 James Jones, both of whom have already committed). That means that along with Gwo, Cal has earned verbal commitments from two of the three best American-based 50 freestylers in the class.
Cal graduated two of its four fastest flat-start 50 freestylers after last season (Seth Stubblefield and Fabio Gimondi); and the other two (Tyler Messerschmidt and Nick Dillinger) are both still on the team’s roster but missed the first meet of the season on Friday against Pacific. That exposed Cal’s relatively limited sprint depth this year as compared to the last decade-or-so, making Vergani (and Gwo before him) important pieces in this class.
Vergani has already announced that he plans on going back to Italy for his senior year before the 2020 Olympics, but that still leaves three good years with the Golden Bears. Missy Franklin famously did the same, swimming two years with California before taking the Olympic Year off to focus on going pro and the Rio 2016 Olympics.