Open Water Junior National Champ Erica Sullivan Verbally Commits to USC

Photo Courtesy: Erica Sullivan

Erica Sullivan, one of the top distance swimmers in the Class of 2018, has verbally committed to the University of Southern California. Sullivan has excelled in open water as well as pool distance swimming throughout her high school career.

Her college decision follows in the footsteps of Becca Mann, the top open water swimmer in the Class of 2016, who just completed her first season as a Trojan.

Sullivan told Swimming World,

“I chose USC because it’s a well rounded program with awesome coaches as well as swimmers. It also gives me the opportunity of pursuing a career that I would like to go into.”

Sullivan is from Las Vegas and trains with Sandpipers of Nevada. She is a rising senior at Palo Verde High School. In May Sullivan raced to the 2017 5K Junior Open Water National title. She won that title by 45 seconds.

Her best pool times are:

200 SCY Free 1:47.43
500 SCY Free 4:39.66
1000 SCY Free 9:29.91
1650 SCY Free 15:47.39
200 LCM Free 2:03.33
400 LCM Free 4:10.87
800 LCM Free 8:37.92
1500 LCM Free 16:25.92

Sullivan has huge scoring potential for the Trojans. With still over a year to go until her NCAA debut she already has times that can score big points on the national stage. At the 2017 NCAA Championships she would have finished fourth in the 1650 freestyle with her lifetime best time. She also would have been a 500 freestyle B finalist this year.

She’ll overlap with Mann for two years. At the Pac-12 level Sullivan will have two years to race Stanford distance aces Katie Ledecky and Megan Byrnes, and a year to compete against Leah Stevens. That Cardinal trio finished in the top four of the mile nationally this year.

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