Andrew Benson, who hails from Newmarket, New Hampshire and attends Phillips Exeter Academy, has announced his verbal commitment to the University of Wisconsin for 2020-21.
Lifetime Badger. Photo courtesy of Andrew Benson
“I am very excited to announce my commitment to the University of Wisconsin Madison. I can not wait to join the badger family and be coached by coach Yuri Suguiyama and the rest of the Wisconsin coaching staff. I would also like to thank my coaches, teammates, and family for the support! Proud to be a second generation badger swimmer, go Badgers!!!” [sic]
Benson swims a wide variety of events, as evidenced by his competition slate at Winter Nationals in December. There, he competed in the 50/100 free, 100 back, 100 breast, and 100 fly. He finaled in both freestyles and in the 100 fly and earned a new PB in the 100m breast (1:07.00). Last summer, swimming with SOLO Aquatics at the New England Swimming Long Course Senior Championships, Benson scored best times in all his LCM events: 50/100/200 free, 100 back, 100 fly, and 200 IM.
In high school swimming last spring, Benson won the 200 free and 100 fly at the New England Division I Prep School Championships, helping Exeter achieve a second-place team finish. Both his winning times were personal bests.
After Winter Nationals in December, Benson competed at the New England Swimming Short Course Senior Championships, lowering his lifetime bests in the SCY 50/100 free, 100 breast, 200 fly, and 200 IM.
Wisconsin finished sixth at the 2018 B1G Championships. Benson’s best times would have scored in the C finals of the 100 free and 200 fly.
Top SCY times:
- 50 free – 20.08
- 100 free – 44.03
- 200 free – 1:39.50
- 100 breast – 55.70
- 100 fly – 48.92
- 200 fly – 1:47.58
- 200 IM – 1:49.85
If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [email protected].
SOLO seems to be a pretty up and coming team. I haven’t really heard of them before 2 or 3 years ago and they are starting to build up a good resume of talented swimmers. I don’t know if he trains for Phillips Exeter or SOLO more but either way pretty solid New England swimmer.
They have always done a great job with their swimmers, they were just a younger team. What you have seen over the past 2-3 years is their first big group of talented athletes finally hitting college. You’ll be seeing a lot more of it over the next few years too.
A couple of years ago Solo bought the Exeter Swim team, which had about 3x the number of swimmers as Solo. The head coach/owner of Solo until about 4 years ago had some interests that kept families away, but he’s been banned now. People are intrigued by the new female head coach/owner. Congratulations to Andrew!
20 point in the 50, Anders Holm will be so proud.