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By David Rieder.
During the third day of prelims at the women’s NCAA championships in Indianapolis, only three different schools put four or more individuals into A-finals: Stanford, Texas A&M and Missouri.
The Cardinal actually put six up, with Ella Eastin in the 400 IM, Janet Hu in the 100 fly, Simone Manuel and Katie Ledecky in the 200 free and Hu and Ally Howe in the 100 back. A few minutes later, the team’s 200 medley relay narrowly avoided a big miss, sneaking into the A-final in eighth.
Stanford might have hoped for two more A-finalists, Allie Szekely in the 400 IM and Lia Neal in the 200 free, and they are actually projected to under-perform by 53 points in the finals session. But Price Fishback, who crunches the numbers after every session, pointed out that Stanford has “have a lot of room to recover tonight because they had a relay and some swimmers qualify top eight at seeds that were well below their pysch sheet seedings.”
The Aggies, meanwhile, went four up-two down in the morning session. Unsurprisingly, half of the individual scorers came out of the 400 IM, where Sydney Pickrem and Bethany Galat both made the A-final, and Monika Gonzalez-Hermosillo made the B-heat. In the very next race, Sarah Gibson set herself up to be a factor in a wide-open 100 fly.
Finally, the Aggies’ 200 medley relay finished as the top seed out of prelims and will threaten for the win in an extremely tight final. A plus-38 morning session put the team is in position to leap past Georgia in the team race and make a real run at finishing third.
And then there’s Missouri—yes, those same Tigers originally projected to finish with all of 26 points at meet’s end. Already, they have scored 34 points, 18 of them coming with a ninth-place finish in the 400 medley relay. Now, as long as there are no DQs, Missouri guaranteed at least 66 points in the day three finals session.
That includes 11 points for each of the team’s four individual A-finalists and 22 for the 200 medley relay—if they were to all finish eighth every time, the worst possible scenario. Their seeds set them up for a 78-point showing, up from the 19 projected on the psych sheet.
For Missouri, Charli Brady will compete in the 400 IM championship final, while Katharine Ross finished seventh in the 100 breast and Nadine Laemmler joined Hannah Stevens in the top heat of the 100 back.
How did some other teams fare during the morning session? Here’s the data from Fishback.
| Team | Current Score | Day 3 Psych Sheet | Day 3 Prelims Seeds | +/- | Day 4 Projected Score | New Projected Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (1) Stanford | 213 | 187 | 134 | -53 | 164 | 511 |
| (2) Cal | 136 | 114 | 107 | -7 | 116 | 359 |
| (3) Texas A&M | 108 | 71 | 109 | +38 | 64 | 281 |
| (4) Texas | 119 | 54 | 54 | 0 | 71 | 244 |
| (5) Georgia | 112 | 57 | 56 | -1 | 69 | 237 |
| (6) USC | 68 | 62 | 44 | -18 | 100 | 212 |
| (7) Louisville | 93 | 42 | 42 | 0 | 56 | 191 |
| (8) NC State | 71 | 68 | 59 | -9 | 57 | 187 |
| (9) Indiana | 61 | 48 | 60 | +12 | 45 | 166 |
| (10) Michigan | 74 | 20 | 26 | +6 | 54 | 154 |
| (11) Virginia | 57 | 35 | 33 | -2 | 59 | 149 |
| (12) Missouri | 34 | 19 | 78 | +59 | 22 | 117 |
| (13) Minn. | 52 | 49 | 30 | -19 | 33 | 115 |
| (14) Wisc. | 49 | 24 | 8 | -16 | 47 | 104 |
| (15) Arizona | 47.5 | 32 | 35 | 3 | 13 | 100 |
It’s not glaring in the above chart, but the morning was not a pretty one for the Georgia Bulldogs. They are projected to only score one less point than had been projected, but with one top seed (Olivia Smoliga in the 100 back) and two ninth-place finishers, upwards mobility would be difficult.
And yes, they had only one A-finalist and two ninth-place finishers among four B-finalists. The 200 medley relay squad also settled for a spot in the consolation heat. And not only has Texas A&M jumped Georgia in the projected final standings, Texas has as well.
During a very solid morning for the Longhorns, Madisyn Cox qualified third for the final of the 200 IM. In the 100 back, Tasija Karosas ended up in the 100 back B-final, but freshman Claire Adams jumped up to finish eighth—and she can go nowhere but up, assuming she finishes the race legally.
Below are the remaining ups and downs for the morning. The first number refers to a team’s total number of A-finalists and the second to the B-finalists. Two swimmers—Stanford’s Hu and UNC’s Hellen Moffitt—actually finished two up on their own, as both will swim in the 100 fly and 100 back finals.
Ups/Downs for individual events:
Stanford – 6/4
Texas A&M – 4/2
Missouri – 4/0
Cal – 3/3
Texas – 2/2
Louisville – 2/1
Virginia – 2/1
Indiana – 2/0
Michigan – 2/0
Ohio State – 2/0
UNC – 2/0
Georgia – 1/4
NC State – 1/2
USC – 1/2
Florida State – 1/1
Minnesota – 1/1
Virginia Tech – 1/1
Cincinnati – 1/0
Denver – 1/0
Iowa – 1/0
Kentucky – 0/4
Tennessee – 0/3
Arizona – 0/1
ASU – 0/1
Auburn – 0/1
South Carolina – 0/1
Drexel – 0/1
Notre Dame – 0/1
Penn State – 0/1
Pitt – 0/1
UMBC – 0/1
Ups/Downs for 200 medley relay:
A-finalists: Texas A&M, NC State, California, Arizona, Indiana, Missouri, Southern California, Stanford
B-finalists: Texas, Florida State, Tennessee, Louisville, Wisconsin, Georgia, Minnesota, Auburn
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