ISL Match 2: Coleman Stewart’s World Record Leads Cali Condors Domination

Photo Courtesy: Mike Lewis/ISL

ISL Match 2: Coleman Stewart’s World Record Leads Cali Condors Domination

On Day 1 of ISL Match 2, the Cali Condors announced their intention to stay atop the International Swimming League standings in Season 3. With Caeleb Dressel in form, Coleman Stewart firing off American records and an amazingly deep women’s contingent, the Condors asserted their early dominance.

Entering Day 2, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that the Condors have this meet knotted up, with the LA Current looking strong. But the Condors’ late strength helped them run away. The battle for second place between the Current and the Tokyo Frog Kings, was intriguing, but the Current did enough to fight off the game Frog Kings. The 707 points scored by the Condors were the most in an ISL match, exceeding the 650.5 that the Condors used to win Semifinal B in 2020.

The final scores for ISL Match 2:

Cali Condors 707
LA Current 402.5
Tokyo Frog Kings 382.5
NY Breakers 269

Live updates are below:

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Women’s 100 freestyle

Abbey Weitzeil took it out, Madison Wilson brought it back, and the LA Current took home 17 points. Weitzeil continued her outstanding form by a win in 51.66 seconds. That’s just four tenths off the American record she set last November in Budapest. Wilson was second in 51.75, with Cali Condors’ Erika Brown third in 52.48.

Men’s 100 freestyle

More Caeleb Dressel doing Caeleb Dressel things. Dressel blasted out of the games in event of one of three Sunday, easing to the victory in 45.94. With the jackpot, he yields 12 points for the Cali Condors, who got another six from Kacper Majchrzak in third place. Tokyo went second and fourth via Nandor Nemeth and Pedro Spajari.

Women’s 200 butterfly

It’s event win No. 3 for the Breakers as the teams in third and fourth battled it out. Svetlana Chimrova blitzed the field to win in 2:05.62, a winning margin of more than a second and a jackpot of 12 points. Her teammate, Ana Catarina Monteiro, was fourth for the Breakers. Tokyo picked up points in second and third, a total haul of 13 points. Leah Gingrich was second in 2:06.84. Keanna MacInnes took third.

Men’s 200 butterfly

Daiya Seto is helping the Frog Kings put the pressure on LA for second in ISL Match 2. Seto took the 200 fly out fast and kept it going to get Tokyo the win in 1:50.68. His team swept up points from everyone’s B swimmer, giving the Frog Kings 19 points from the race via the jackpot. Second was Tom Shields of LA in 1:52.88 to limit the damage. Jose Angel Martinez of the Cali Condors was third.

Women’s 100 backstroke

The Cali Condors onslaught has begun, and it’s by a possibly unlikely source. Yes, it’s a Dressel. No, it’s not that Dressel.

Sherridon Dressel used a composed second 50 to get to the wall first in 57.08, as the Condors again flexed their almost unfair depth. Teammate Maaike de Waard was third, giving the Condors 15 points. Ingrid Wilm spoiled the party on behalf of the LA Current by finishing second in 57.28.

Men’s 100 backstroke

The first world record of the ISL season, and the first full jackpot in ISL history, belongs to Coleman Stewart. The American blasted a 48.33, downing the ISL and world record of Kliment Kolesnikov from last year, to set the season’s first world record. He was more than two seconds up on teammate Justin Ress in second, meaning that Stewart grabs all 37 points on offer for the Condors.

Women’s 100 individual medley

Not needed in the 100 backstroke, Beata Nelson instead elected to go out and win the 100 IM in a time of 58.05. She overcame Anastasia Gorbenko of the LA Current on the final 50 to get to the wall first in 58.05 to Gorbenko’s 58.32. Abbie Wood of the NY Breakers was third in 58.67, while league record-holder Beryl Gastaldello settled for fourth ahead of double IM Olympic champ Yui Ohashi in fifth.

Men’s 100 individual medley

Blah blah blah, Dressel, win, Cali, jackpot, blah blah blah.

For the second time in as many men’s events, the Cali Condors said no points for anyone else. Caeleb Dressel came one place shy of the full jackpot, winning the event in 51.01, a margin of more than a second and a half over the field. The only swimmer to hang onto his points was teammate Marcin Cieslak in 52.52. That gives the Condors all 37 points once again, in a team competition in ISL Match 2 quickly becoming a laugher.

Women’s 100 breaststroke

Another day, another Lilly King domination. King went out more than a second faster than the rest of the field and kept it going in the final 50, clocking in at 1:03.54. That gleans King 19 points via the jackpot and a 1-2 sweep with teammate Emily Escobedo second in 1:05.32. The only team that salvaged its points from the race was Tokyo, with Kanako Watanabe and Miranda Tucker third and fourth, respectively.

Men’s 100 breaststroke

Tokyo is making its move via breaststroke, with a 1-2 performance. Yasuhiro Koseki led start to finish in 57.09 to get the win, with teammate Alessandro Pinzuti second. That’s 17 points for the Frog Kings. Cali swept up third and fourth via Kevin Cordes and Oleg Kostin, respectively.

Women’s 50 butterfly

Kelsi Dahlia put her head down over the final few meters and got her hands to the wall first, as she’s done so often for the last decade. Dahlia was quickest in the race at 25.23 seconds, getting Cali Condors another win in an extended ISL Match 2 victory parade. Teammate Maaike de Waard was third. In between was the Current’s Helena Gasson as the Current try to fend off Tokyo for second. An 11-3 points margin in this event helps.

Men’s 50 butterfly

Caeleb Dressel has been beaten.

Those aren’t words you get to type often, even more so in the 50 fly. But it happened Sunday at ISL Match 2. A long finish after Dressel had been out front most of the way meant he was denied the win by Tokyo’s Takeshi Kawamoto in Lane 1, who hit his finish perfectly to get the win in 22.28. Dressel was second in 22.35, still a very good swim from him, with Tom Shields of LA third.

Women’s 200 freestyle

One quandary for ISL teams, as it pondered Season 3, was how to approach an increased emphasis on the mid-distance events. Sprinting is all fun and games, but if you’re team falters beyond 200 meters, then it’s hard to post results.

The LA Current have it figured out, and they’re getting big points as a result. Madison Wilson, off a great performance in the 100 free, posted a time of 1:53.74, besting the field by 1.62 seconds and getting 12 points via jackpot. Teammate Valentine Dumont finished fourth to get 17 points for the Current. Tokyo did its best to negate that, finishing second and third via ISL rookie Paige Madden and Chihiro Igarashi.

Men’s 200 freestyle

If LA Current finishes second in this match, Fernando Scheffer’s swim in the 200 free will be a big reason why. Scheffer and Martin Malyutin went 1-2 in the event, Scheffer winning in 1:42.86 and Malyutin in 1:43.20. That’s 17 points for the Condors compared to just four for Tokyo, solidifying the Current’s grasp on second. The NY Breakers’ Jakub Kraska was third to get some consolation for the stragglers.

Mixed medley relay

It’s a testament to the Cali Condors depth that they can possibly be disappointed by finishing just first and third in the mixed medley relay, and doing so by resting their two top swimmers for the skins races. The A squad – Justin Ress, Molly Hannis, Caeleb Dressel, Erika Brown – dominated in 3:35.87, with Dressel taking them from fifth to first in the fly leg and letting Brown coast home. The LA Current spoiled the party thanks to ta great Tom Shields leg on fly to hand off to Abbey Weitzeil; Ingrid Wilm and Christopher Rothbauer led off. The Condors nearly got into second with the B relay courtesy of Jesse Puts on the end, but given that Coleman Stewart was rested to prep for skins, 32 points isn’t too bad.

Women’s 400 individual medley

It has been a thoroughly forgettable ISL Match 2 for most of the NY Breakers not named Abbie Wood. But Wood has continued to swim magnificently despite her team’s struggles. In the 400 IM, Wood was outstanding again, controlling the field to get the win in 4:29.88. With the jackpot and intermediate points, she collected 21 points. She also set down an impressive marker over Yui Ohashi, the double Olympic champ who was unbeaten last year for Tokyo in the even in her debut season. Sunday, she was 4.87 seconds slower than Wood in what didn’t stay a race for long. Tokyo picked up 18 points, with Leah Gingrich fourth. The LA Current got 14 points, led by Sara Franceschi in third.

Men’s 400 individual medley

The race for second place is not over yet, not thanks to a 24-0 margin for Tokyo in the 400 IM behind Daiya Seto’s winning time of 4:01.10. The world and ISL record holder was dominant just like Wood, finishing 4.76 seconds in front of the field. With the jackpot and intermediate times, he garnered 24 points while the Current were shut out. Second was the Breakers’ Brendon Smith ahead of teammate Brandonn Almeida.

As we head to skins, the Tokyo Frog Kings are just 20 points behind the Current, LA with 386.5 to Tokyo’s 366.5.

Women’s skins race

The strokes change, but the Cali Condors’ dominance on the women’s side remains the same. Sherridon Dressel and Beata Nelson were 1-2 at each stage of the backstroke skins, applying the punctuation mark on a dominant performance from the Condors.

Dressel won the first round at 26.59 by .05 over Nelson. Nelson took the semifinals at 26.33 and held it out front of Dressel in the final, clocking in at 26.67 off a stellar wall to win by a second. No matter, since all the points went in the Cali kitty – 16 in Round 1, 21 in Round 2 and 21 in the final.

The Tokyo surge ended in Round 1 with neither Frog King advancing to the semifinals, with LA Current’s Kathleen Baker keeping them at bay and grabbing five points in fourth. Though Baker didn’t score in Round 2, it was enough to keep Tokyo from scoring as it needed to claw back the gap. Alicja Tchorz made a charge in the semifinals for the NY Breakers, but she couldn’t spoil an all-Cali final pairing.

Men’s skins race

Unless we tell you otherwise, just assume it’s a Cali Condors’ 1-2.

Coleman Stewart and Justin Ress did the job, with Stewart sewing up the match MVP honors with a virtuoso performance. Stewart was third in the opening round, with Ress first, before Stewart went quickest in the semis and then jackpotted his teammate in the final. Stewart was 23.38, 23.74 then 23.30 in the final of his dominant broken 150. With jackpots in Rounds 2 and 3, he claimed 47 points to augment 16 for Ress.

Tokyo and LA Current each got a swimmer through the first round, via Richard Bohus and Apostolos Christou, respectively. But they were no match for the buzzsaw that is the reigning ISL champions.

That makes the final scores of ISL Match 2:

Cali Condors 707
LA Current 402.5
Tokyo Frog Kings 382.5
NY Breakers 269

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