{"id":296652,"date":"2018-02-16T12:06:37","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T19:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=296652"},"modified":"2018-02-16T12:06:37","modified_gmt":"2018-02-16T19:06:37","slug":"ncaa-swimming-notebook-indiana-and-virginia-women-impressive-early","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/ncaa-swimming-notebook-indiana-and-virginia-women-impressive-early\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Swimming Notebook: Indiana and Virginia Women Impressive Early"},"content":{"rendered":"

By David Rieder.<\/em><\/p>\n

Through the first 48 hours of NCAA swimming conference championships, the women of the Indiana Hoosiers and Virginia Cavaliers have each posted sparkling relay efforts that have left ripples in the national rankings.<\/p>\n

Oh, and Caeleb Dressel<\/strong> smashed a record<\/a>\u2014in case you missed it.<\/p>\n

Check out the entries in today\u2019s NCAA swimming notebook.<\/p>\n

The Indiana women can medley.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
The Indiana women laid down the first hammer of conference championship season with a near-record-breaking performance in the 200 medley relay. Ally Rockett<\/strong>, Lilly<\/strong> King<\/strong>, Christine Jensen<\/strong> and Grace Haskett<\/strong> put together a time of 1:34.16, the third-fastest time in history. Only the NCAA title-winning teams from Cal (2017) and Stanford (2016) have been quicker.<\/p>\n
Looking back to that 2017 NCAA championship race, the Golden Bears recorded the fastest time in history at 1:34.10. Indiana finished fourth that night, 1.16 seconds behind. King, unsurprisingly, was a part of that relay, as was Rockett, while Jensen (junior) and Haskett (freshman) are new additions. So where did the difference come from? Check the splits:<\/p>\n
2017 NCAA championships:<\/strong><\/p>\n
$\"women-200-medley-relay-2017-ncaa\"$ <\/p>\n
Indiana women at Big Ten championships:<\/strong><\/p>\n
1 Indiana 1:34.58 1:34.16#A 64 \r\n 1) Rockett, Alexandra SR 2) r:0.35 King, Lillia JR \r\n 3) r:0.34 Jensen, Christine JR 4) r:0.46 Haskett, Grace FR \r\n r:+0.70 12.02 23.63 (23.63)\r\n 35.38 (11.75) 49.47 (25.84)\r\n 59.63 (10.16) 1:12.14 (22.67)\r\n 1:22.53 (10.39) 1:34.16 (22.02)\r\n<\/pre>\n
Well, not from King. The world\u2019s top sprint breaststroker was solid on the Big Ten relay, at 25.84, but she split 25.62 last year at NCAAs. But Rockett improved from 24.05 to 23.63, and Jensen split 22.62, a half-second better than Gia Dalessandro\u2019s<\/strong> 23.12 split from the 2017 championships.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to lose perspective on 50-yard splits, so here\u2019s some: Only Olympic medalist Kathleen Baker<\/strong> put up a faster 50 back at last year\u2019s NCAAs than Rockett from Wednesday night, and Jensen would have ranked third behind the now-graduated Sarah Gibson<\/strong> and USC\u2019s Louise<\/strong> Hansson<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
$\"lilly-king-breast-2017-phillips-66-nationals\"$
Lilly King — Photo Courtesy: Marc Lebryk-USA TODAY Sports<\/p><\/div>\n
The Hoosiers still aren\u2019t elite on the freestyle leg, with Haskett at 22.02, but they don\u2019t need to be. Why? Because they have King\u2014and no one else has anything close to that. When King split 25.62 on the breast leg last year, the only swimmer within a second of her in either the A or B-final was Texas A&M\u2019s Jorie Caneta<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
For Cal and Stanford, likely the Hoosiers\u2019 strongest competition for a national title in the event, the breaststroke leg will be the weakest link of their medley relays. Freshman Grace Zhao<\/strong> has been impressive for the Cardinal, and Cal sprinter Abbey Weitzeil<\/strong> has done a fine job moonlighting as a breaststroker for this relay, but neither one is anywhere close to Lilly King.<\/p>\n
Virginia women, underdogs no more.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
University of Virginia associate head coach Tyler Fenwick<\/strong> is an unabashed fan of the Philadelphia Eagles, a team which recently won all three of its playoff games as an underdog on the way to the franchise\u2019s first-ever Super Bowl win. Along the way, Eagles players emphasized that no one believed in their team by donning realistic-looking dog masks.<\/p>\n
Before this week\u2019s women\u2019s ACC championships, Fenwick fancied his team as similar underdogs.<\/p>\n
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\u2694\ufe0fHeaded into ACC\u2019s like… pic.twitter.com\/IbtplCChr5<\/a><\/p>\n
— Tyler Fenwick \u2694\ufe0f\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@UVACoachFenwick) February 13, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n