AM Conference Notebook: The Chase for Pool Records at Georgia Tech

By David Rieder.

Check out today’s notebook before the first full day of the women’s ACC championships gets underway at 10 a.m. ET at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center in Atlanta.

What’s in a pool record, anyway?

At Georgia Tech, a lot, and not because it’s the same pool that hosted the swimming competition at the 1996 Olympic Games. It’s because every short course pool record at McAuley Aquatic Center except one was broken between last year’s women’s and men’s NCAA championships. The exception was Peter Vanderkaay’s 4:08.60 in the men’s 500 free.

But this is the women’s ACC championships going on at Georgia Tech this week, so to beat a pool record, that would mean a swimmer has to beat the winning time from last year’s NCAAs. As impressive was NC State’s 1:34.89 in the 200 medley relay Monday afternoon, it still missed the pool record in the event, the 1:34.81 from Stanford last season.

Any chance to break a pool record Tuesday? Well, actually, yes—a pretty good one. Virginia senior Leah Smith won last year’s NCAA title in the 500 free with a time of 4:31.33, a mark which remains the pool record. But Smith actually swam much faster at the ACC championships in 2016 with a 4:30.74.

Smith also owns the GT pool record in the mile with her 15:32.72 from NCAAs, and again she was faster at ACCs last year with a 15:25.30. That record, too, could go down this week.

Virginia spots NC State a 64-point lead after one race.

The Cavaliers made their quest for a 10th-straight conference title that much more difficult Monday when 200 medley relay anchor Caitlin Cooper went off a few one-hundredths too soon. Virginia touched third in that relay, and even a sluggish relay exchange would have been good for a top-five finish and the accompanying 50 points.

Say Virginia had scored 50 in the 200 medley relay. Sure, not an ideal start to the meet but only 14 less than NC State got for a relay win. And with Smith, Kaitlyn Jones and others expected to pile up individual victories, the deficit was far from insurmountable.

But losing 50 points could hurt plenty. The Cavaliers went on to win the 800 free relay, and Kylie Towbin and Sydney Dusel finished seventh and 12th, respectively, in 3-meter diving. Had they not disqualified they medley, the team would be just off the lead, but instead they are ninth, 51 points out of first and 24 points behind NC State, whose highest-placing diver finished 19th.

Sure, Virginia could still come back from that early setback, but the DQ makes it plenty tougher. Even though the meet is scored through 24th place, every point is precious when Virginia only won last year’s title by 154.5 points over the Wolfpack.

Louisville weathering the loss Kelsi Worrell… so far.

Kelsi Worrell finished her career with the Cardinals last season as undoubtedly the best swimmer in program history. She won four NCAA championships over her last two seasons. So how can her former teammates manage without her? Well, check out the results from day one.

Louisville finished second in the 200 medley relay in 1:35.69, just a quarter-second off the 1:35.43 the team swam to win last season’s ACC title with Worrell on the squad. And that’s even with butterflyer Nastja Govejek splitting 23.15, the fourth-best fly split in the field but nowhere near the 22.42 Worrell recorded last year.

Certainly, Govejek’s emergence has plenty to do with bridging the cap to Worrell, but the big improvement on this year’s relay came from freshman anchor Casey Fanz, whose 21.52 split was second-fastest in the field. And it allowed Mallory Comerford to sit out this relay and save her energy for the other four, plus three individual events. Speaking of which…

Yes, Mallory Comerford split 1:41.12 on the 800 free relay.

Comerford kicked off her ACC championships career one year ago when she held off Virginia to win the 200 medley relay for Louisville. This year, the emergence of Fanz allowed the sophomore to save her energy for the 800 free relay… which paid off.

Comerford split a 1:41.12 to propel Louisville to a third-place finish. For some perspective: Comerford’s fastest split last year was a 1:42.72 from the NCAA championships. How many splits from the 2016 NCAA meet beat Comerford’s mark from Monday night? A grand total of zero.

Comerford ended up finishing second in the 200 free at those championships in 1:42.54, just behind Brittany MacLean’s 1:42.42—which happens to be the pool record. So, yeah, that one will be in jeopardy on Wednesday.

All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.

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