Conference Action Across The Country Dominates The Week That Was

Photo Courtesy: USC Swimming/Facebook

The Pac-12, ACC, Big-10, and many other all met last week as conference season continues to move closer to the NCAA Championships. Take a look below to see the standout swims from this week and who to keep an eye on as we move towards the big showdown in March!

The Week That was is supported by AgonSwim.com

The Week That Was #5 – SMU Breaking Ground On New Facility

Photo Courtesy: SMU Athletics

Last Friday, February 26th, Southern Methodist University broke ground on their new Aquatics Facility. The new facility will be a 42,000-square-foot-center that will be the new home for SMU’s men and women’s swimming and diving programs. The Aquatics Center will be on the university’s east campus, and will feature an 8-lane long course olympic indoor pool. The new facility will also contain a platform diving well that will feature four springboards and a 10-meter tower for training and competition. Spectator seating on the mezzanine level will have space for 800 people for competitions.

This replaces the famous Perkins Natatorium, which was the home of the Mustangs swim programs from 1959 to 2014. While only a 6 six-lane pool that was relatively shallow, it was legendary for the fast times posted during the annual SMU Classic and had pool records from numerous NCAA Champions and Olympians. The Mustangs will continue to train at their 50-meter Barr Pool, an outdoor facility, until the new aquatic center is completed.

The Week That Was #4 – Princeton Repeats With Narrow Ivy Win Over Harvard

Photo Courtesy: Princeton Athletics

The Princeton men came from behind to repeat as Ivy League Champions for their second straight title. After a dominant HYP meet all eyes were on the Tigers to repeat their impressive performance. While Princeton did ultimately come out on top, the Harvard men did not go down without a fight. The Crimson led through the first two days of the meet before Princeton surged through day three to take the title by 21.5 points.

Notable swims included Penn senior Chris Swanson recording a meet record and NCAA ‘A’ cut in the 1650 freestyle, touching in 14:40.18. Swanson also won the 500 freestyle (4:16.13) and 1,000 freestyle (8:51.32). Harvard’s 200 freestyle relay of Paul O’Hara, Max Yakubovich, Steven Tan, and Sebastian Lutz also recorded an A cut while picking up the win in 1:17.55, while Princeton’s 400 free relay of En-Wei Hu-Van Wright, Julian Mackrel, Ben Schafer, and Sandy Bole sealed their teams victory en route to recording an A cut time of 2:52.06. In breaststroke action, Cornell sophomore Alex Evdokimov set meet records en route to sweeping the 100 (52.46) and 200 (1:53.56) breaststrokes.

Check out all of Swimming World’s recaps and full results at the Ivy League Championship page.

The Week That Was #3 – Michigan Dominates Big 10’s

Photo Courtesy: Dave Wegiel

The Michigan Wolverine men won their sixth straight Big 10 Championship last week, bringing their total number of school championships to 40. Michigan started the meet off with two dominant relay wins, They started off with a win in the 200 medley relay, with Jason Chen (21.34), Chris Klein (23.56), Jeremy Raisky (20.22) and Paul Powers (19.00) setting a pool record in 1:24.12. Michigan kept the ball rolling in the 800 free relay, where Anders Nielsen (1:32.36), Mokhtar Al-Yamani (1:35.63), Jack Mangan (1:33.64) and Dylan Bosch (1:33.41) won the relay at 6:15.04. That protected the Wolverine’s 16 year winning streak in that relay.

Michigan continued their strong showing on the second night, as Anders Nielson (4:12.83) took the 500 free, and Dylan Bosch led a 1-2-3 sweep of the 200 IM. But the stand-out swim from that night had to be sophomore Paul Powers, who became the fourth man under 19-seconds in the 50 freestyle this season when he won in 18.85. Only a sophomore, Powers was seeded with a 19.37 coming into the meet, clocking a Big 10 record of 19.03 in prelims before dipping under at night. He will be one of the now-many sprint stars to watch at NCAA’s, as we are set up to have potentially the fastest 50 free field in history.

On the final night of the meet, sophomore PJ Ransford, who was second in the 1,650 last year at NCAA’s, dominated the field by more than 20 seconds, touching in 14:36.61 to break the legendary Peter Vanderkaay’s 2004 pool record. Notably, senior Dylan Bosch made history when he won his fourth straight 200 fly title (1:40.86), becoming the first Big 10 swimmer to win the event four years in a row.

The Week That Was #2 – NC State Wins Second Straight ACC Championship

Photo Courtesy: David Rieder

The NC State Wolfpack made a statement last week at ACC’s, winning their second consecutive and 26th overall championship title. The men finished more 350 points ahead of runner-up Louisville and over 500 points ahead of third place North Carolina. As usual, the Wolfpack dominated the relay and sprint freestyle events. They came away with four relay wins, and NC State had nearly half of the A finalists in the 50, 100, and 200 freestyles while sweeping those events.

NC State started off with two meet records in the 200 Medley and 800 Freestyle relays, touching in 1:23.19 and 6:12.76 respectively. They followed that up with a third relay win in the 200 free relay (1:15.65), which was fresh off of two sub-19 swims in the individual 50 freestyle. Sophomore Ryan Held touched first in a meet record time of 18.92, just ahead of teammate Simonas Bilis who was second in 18.94. Both of those time were just off of Bilis’ 2015 conference record of 18.91. On the third day, Bilis then led a 1-2-3 sweep of the 200 freestyle, just missing the meet and ACC record by .01 when he touched in 1:32.46.

On the final night of competition, NC State swept the 100 freestyle, as Ryan Held (41.69), Simonas Bilis (42.16), and Soeren Dahl (42.85) finished at the top of the podium. Held broke the meet and conference record set by Bilis in the prelims. NC State closed the meet with their fourth relay win of the meet, as Bilis (41.76), Held (41.63), Joseph Bonk (42.69), and Dahl (42.45) touched in 2:48.52 to break the meet and pool record in the event.

To check out all of the Swimming World recaps and full results from the meet, head over to the ACC Championship Meet Page.

The Week That Was #1 – USC Captures First Ever Pac-12 Title

Photo Courtesy: USC Swimming/Facebook

The big story from this week came from our west, where the University of Southern California captured the women’s program’s first ever Pac-12 Championship Title. While USC had some big wins from Chelsea Chenault in the 500 (4:38.13) and freshman Elizabeth Stinson in the 1,650 (15:59.13), ultimately it was the program’s depth across all of the events that helped bring them home the title.

While USC came away with the championship title, Stanford and Cal still put up some lightning fast swims to keep things interesting. Stanford opened the meet with an American Record in the 200 Medley Relay, as the team of Ally Howe (23.62), Sarah Haase (26.20), Janet Hu (22.82) and Lia Neal (21.51) touched in 1:34.15 to break Cal’s record from the 2012 NCAA’s. On the third night, those same four women came together to clip the 400 medley relay as well, touching in 3:26.25 to clear the Cardinal’s record from NCAA’s last year.

Not to be outdone, rival California managed to post some impressive swims of their own. On the second night of the meet Cal junior Farida Osman posted history’s second-fastest 50 freestyle ever when she won in 21.32. That ties the Golden Bear with Stanford rival Simone Manuel, who is redshirting this year in preparation for 2016 Olympic Trials. Osman also won the 100 butterfly in 50.53 as the only woman in the field under :51. Notably, freshman Amy Bilquist posted a meet record 50.50 in the prelims of the 100 backstroke, shaving nearly two seconds off her lifetime best, before falling to third behind Stanford’s Ally Howe and fellow Golden Bear Rachel Bootsma in the finals at night.
The real star of the meet, however, was Stanford freshman Ella Eastin, who recorded three individual wins throughout the championship. That started with a 1:52.77 win over Bilquist in the 200 IM, and was followed up by a huge 3:59.30 in the 400 IM. That time set the 17-18 NAG record and made Eastin the youngest woman ever under 4:00 in the longer IM. She also grabbed a win in the 200 butterfly (1:52.01) on the final night of competition.

To read all recaps and see results, go to Swimming World’s Pac-12 Championship Page.

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