CHARLESTON, South Carolina, October 5. THE University of Alabama picked up a big recruiting commitment on Friday when Matthew Adams verbally committed to swim for the Crimson Tide. Adams and coach Jesup Szatkowski each confirmed the exclusive news to Swimming World late Friday evening. Adams, who broke a pair of state records at his high school state championships earlier this month, brings versatility and speed to Tuscaloosa.<\/p>\n
Adams currently attends Bishop England High School in Charleston, SC, and he swims for the LTP Racing Club. Adams said in a text, “Alabama has a very experienced coaching staff and is a team that has huge potential. Roll tide!” Indeed, Adams joins an Alabama program on the rise, now in the second year under head coach Dennis Pursley, who returned to his alma matter in 2012 after a four year stint as the head coach of British Swimming. Pursley guided the Britons to three medals at the London Olympics.<\/p>\n
According to CollegeSwimming.com, Adams is the number one recruit out of South Carolina in the class of 2014. As a junior, Adams had already posted blazing times in the sprint freestyle and backstroke events, but he gave some notice that his IM had some pop as well in his record-breaking performance three weeks ago. At South Carolina’s 3A High School State meet, he posted times of 1:50.78 in the 200 IM and 45.32 in the 100 free.<\/p>\n
Other top times include a 51.89 in the 100 back, 1:50.37 in the 200 back, and 1:38.24 in the 200 free, where he finished fourth at last year’s Winter Junior Nationals. With his times from high school, Adams should swim on Alabama’s SEC Championships squad as a freshman, and with the conference now scoring the top 24 swimmers in each event, he could contribute to the Crimson Tide cause in his first year.<\/p>\n
Adams competed this summer at USA Swimming’s Junior Nationals in Irvine in his four strongest events. He has swum long course times of 52.94 in the 100 free, 1:55.43 in the 200 free, 58.78 in the 100 back, and 2:05.01 in the 200 back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CHARLESTON, South Carolina, October 5. THE University of Alabama picked up a big recruiting commitment on Friday when Matthew Adams verbally committed to swim for the Crimson Tide. Adams and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24690,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-frontpage","category-high-school"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n