Alexei Sancov, the number 3 high school recruit on our list of top-20 boys for 2018, has verbally committed to the University of Southern California.
“I am very excited to swim for the Trojans starting in the fall of 2018 and looking forward to continuing my improvements in Short Course swimming, which is pretty new for me”
“Short Course swimming” is indeed new to Sancov, as he has only been competing in that format since late 2016. He represented Moldova at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. More recently he broke the World Junior Record in the 200m free this past June at European Junior Championships, going 1:47.00.
Sancov participated in his first high school season this past spring with Walnut Creek, California’s Northgate High School. He won the 200/500 free double at the CIF-North Coast Section Championships, with 1:33.93 and 4:22.43, respectively. He also led off Northgate’s winning 4×50 free (20.48) and 4×100 free (43.96) relays. He then went on to the California State meet and won the 200 with a new state record of 1:34.25. He also set a state meet record of 43.46 in the 100 free while leading off Northgate’s winning 400 free relay.
Sancov swims for the club team Terrapins Swim Team out of Concord. He has posted a slew of new times this spring and summer. At the moment, his top times include:
| SCY | LCM | |
| 50 free | 20.25 | — |
| 100 free | 43.46 | 49.01 |
| 200 free | 1:33.93 | 1:47.00 |
| 500/400 free | 4:19.85 | 3:53.42 |
| 800 | — | 8:06.54 |
| 1500 | — | 15:29.73 |
| 100 fly | 47.33 | 54.14 |
| 200 fly | 1:47.18 | — |
| 200 IM | 1:47.28 | 2:04.02 |
Sancov is a great pick-up for USC. Only 19 swimmers went under 1:34 in prelims of 2017 NCAA Division I Championships; Sancov would have been the 20th-fastest at the meet. He has only swim the event a total of 17 times since his first outing, a 1:43.61 prelims/1:40.09 finals showing at a senior meet at the beginning of November 2016. Similarly, he swam his first 500 free at the same meet, clocking a 4:48.01. Sancov has only swum 10 more 500s since then, including his best performance of 4:19 at Winter Juniors East.
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Nice to see the Trojan men get some recruiting mojo back with quality top 20 recruits Sancov and Spektor. But it’s still a quality and quantity numbers game because it seems like for every quality swimmer USC recruits, Cal and Stanford recruit 2 or 3 swimmers.
Of note for the HS boys, California has an “off” year with only 1 swimmer in the top 20 (Sancov) and he’s an international swimmer training in Walnut Creek. These things go in cycles but it seems like Texas has a number of quality swimmers for the boys.
The story is different with the HS girls, and California is well represented in top 20, including #1 recruit.
This 2018 recruiting recap… Read more »
This Dude is the DUDE!!! Great get for the Trogins
I think he will be the best of everyone in this class. 1:47.00 is no joke. Just learning yards swimming as well!
That’s a huge free pick up he’ll most likely follow in Dylan carters foot steps
only 6 more top-20s + 3 honorable mentions left (from swimswam’s top 20 recruiting list)
Only 19 swimmers went under 1:40 in prelims of 2017 NCAA Division 1. Uh in what event cause the slowest time in the 200 at NCAA’s was 1:38.69
Guessing the author meant 1:34- that makes much more sense.
huge recruit – following in the footsteps of Quintero and Carter – rangy freestylers