By Dan D’Addona.
The Stanford women raced out to another quick start on the second day of the Ohio State Invitational, and while Katie Ledecky has dominated with several NCAA records so far this season, the Olympic gold medalist was touched out twice on Saturday — by her own teammates.
But an even bigger race ams in the next event as Stanford’s Ella Eastin held off Ledecky to win the 400 IM in an NCAA automatic qualifying time of 4:00.36. Ledecky, finished just behind at 4:00.65, also an automatic cut.
Stanford’s Allie Szekely was third (4:05.63), giving the Cardinal a 1-2-3 finish.
Simone Manuel also edged Ledecky in the 200 freestyle, winning in 1:41.90, just ahead of Ledecky’s 1:42.16. Both are NCAA automatic cuts.
Teammates Katie Drabot (1:44.93), Lia Neal (1:45.16) and Nicole Stafford (1:45.26) completed a 1-2-3-4-5 sweep for the Cardinal.
Stanford leads the meet with nearly 700 points, nearly double that of Kentucky and Ohio State in the 10-team field.
Ally Howe, Heidi Poppe, Janet Hu and Manuel surged to a dominating win in the 200-yard medley relay, achieving an automatic qualifying time for the NCAA championships at 1 minute, 36.53 seconds.
Howe won the 100 backstroke (50.91) just ahead of Hu (51.01), both in automatic NCAA qualifying times.
It was more than three seconds ahead of second-place Iowa (1:39.15).
In the men’s meet, Ohio State (750) had a big lead over Utah (449), Kentucky (396.5), Penn State (320), Iowa (248.5), Pitt (223) and Kenyon (69).
Ohio State’s Matt McHugh, Jack Barone, Michael Salazar and Josh Fleagle won the 200 medley relay (1:26.62).
OSU’s Ching Lim won the 400 IM (3:46.16). McHugh won the 100 butterfly (46.78), going 1-2 with Salazar (47.02), both NCAA provisional cuts. Taylor Varo won the 100 breaststroke (59.86).
Lim, Brayden Seal, Andrew Appleby and Fleagle won the 800 freestyle relay (6:28.01).
Katie Ledecky is getting faster! Wonder if it’s not too much though!
She is distance dominant but still can be beat in other events. Gives her motivation to train at least. If she dominated everything what would be the point in training.