Medley Relays Spell Big Trouble for Tennessee Women at NCAA Champs

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

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By David Rieder.

The first setback came Thursday evening, when Tennessee was disqualified in the 4×100 medley relay. The Lady Vols touched sixth in that event Thursday night at the women’s NCAA championships, but it was for naught after anchor Stanzi Moseley was called for kicking underwater on her back, a violation of the Lochte rule.

That left the team in fourth place at 108.5 points, just one-half point behind third-place Michigan, after Tennessee lost out on 26 potential points with that DQ. Yes, that’s significant, but this is worth noting: The team still outscored its psych sheet projection of 107 for the first two days, mostly thanks to the 4×200 free relay team improving from the 10th seed to fourth place.

Erika Brown, the most valuable swimmer of the SEC championships and arguably the breakout performer of the NCAA season, has been as advertised so far at the NCAA meet, leading off the 4×200 relay in 1:42.39—which would have qualified second in the individual 200 free—and then finishing second in the 50 free, ahead of names like Liz Li and Abbey Weitzeil.

erika-brown-tennessee-swimmer-of-the-meet-sec-championships

Photo Courtesy: Thomas Campbell/Texas A&M Athletics

And as the second-fastest performer in history in the event, Brown will be among the favorites to capture an individual title in the 100 fly. But Brown didn’t swim on Tennessee’s ill-fated 4×100 medley relay, as Vols coach Matt Kredich picked that as the one relay she would be held out of. That decision looked great after the DQ.

In short, Tennessee was still on track to finish in the top five—but there was no room for error. An error such as, say, the Vols fifth-seeded 4×50 medley relay team falling out of the top eight, let alone the top 16.

Friday morning, the second shoe dropped. The team was in good shape after the butterfly leg during the 4×50 medley relay prelims, but when Brown dove in for the anchor leg, she inexplicably began swimming butterfly instead of freestyle. She switched to free on the second 25 of the race, but it was too late.

Brown’s split was 22.97, an eternity away from the 21.51 she swam in the individual 50 free final Thursday night. And even though Tennessee was not DQed—despite the questionable legality of swimming fly on the free leg of a medley relay—the team ended up 19th in 1:37.66, 0.21 slower than 16th-place Georgia and 0.62 slower than eight-place Georgia.

Can Tennessee bounce back from that? It will be tough. The team would have been guaranteed at least 22 points with a top-eight finish in the 4×50 medley relay, and those points lost are on top of the 26 points surrendered with the Thursday night DQ.

And remember, when Tennessee was projected to finish fifth at the end of the meet, it was only by 11 points over USC, while Louisville, Virginia and Texas were all projected within 45 points. So a meet that got off to such a promising start for the Volunteers now has been dealt two major blows.

A top-10 finish remains in the cards, but anything much better than that would take near perfection the rest of the way.

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