{"id":524888,"date":"2023-03-17T16:09:35","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T23:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=524888"},"modified":"2023-03-17T19:14:56","modified_gmt":"2023-03-18T02:14:56","slug":"ncaa-womens-championships-lydia-jacoby-storms-home-to-steal-100-breaststroke-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/ncaa-womens-championships-lydia-jacoby-storms-home-to-steal-100-breaststroke-title\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Women’s Championships: Lydia Jacoby Storms Home to Steal 100 Breaststroke Title"},"content":{"rendered":"

NCAA Women’s Championships: Lydia Jacoby Storms Home to Steal 100 Breaststroke Title<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was impossible to pick a favorite among four contenders in the women’s 100 breaststroke between defending champion\u00a0Kaitlyn Dobler<\/strong> of USC, the Texas international-medal-winning duo of Anna Elendt<\/strong> and\u00a0Lydia Jacoby<\/strong> and Knoxville home favorite\u00a0Mona McSharry<\/strong>. Indeed, the race was tight the entire way, with Elendt trying to hold off McSharry on the third and fourth lengths, but out of nowhere, Jacoby rocketed over the top to score the win and her first individual NCAA title.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old originally from Alaska is best known for her stunning win in the 100-meter breast at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics when she came from behind to upset American veteran\u00a0Lilly King<\/strong> and\u00a0South Africa’s Tatjana Schoenmaker<\/strong>. This collegiate final looked awfully similar to that Olympic race as Jacoby showed off the same finishing speed to slingshot ahead of McSharry and touch the wall in 57.03, 13 hundredths clear of Tennessee’s McSharry, who touched second in 57.16.<\/p>\n

Jacoby was an unknown heading into the Olympic season two years ago, but a rapid ascension culminated in her Tokyo golden moment. However, Jacoby could not recapture that magic in 2022, and she missed out on the U.S. World Championships team by less than a tenth, touching fourth in a close 100-meter breast final at the U.S. International Team Trials. But Jacoby has broken through again during her first season with the Longhorns.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s been huge. I had a pretty rough year following the Olympics, and it\u2019s been a lot better, getting that momentum going since I\u2019ve been at Texas. It\u2019s huge for me to come back and do this, kind of prove to myself that I didn\u2019t peak in high school,” Jacoby said. “I think my first 50 was definitely a little bit crunchy. I was just trying to stay with everyone, stay in that mix. I know that I can back-half it, but I still have to be in there to be able to do that, so I was just trying to stay with everyone and then kind of lock in on the way back.”<\/p>\n

After her struggles as a high school senior, success in her first season with head coach\u00a0Carol Capitani\u00a0<\/strong>and the Longhorns has been immediate. Jacoby attributed that to the motivating team environment in Austin as well as resetting her own mindset to account for her past success.<\/p>\n

“I had a pretty big burnout with swimming, and it was a pretty big struggle day-in and day-out to get to the pool. I graduated a semester early. I didn\u2019t have a lot going on outside of the pool either, so it was hard mentally to balance everything. I was struggling with not getting the performance I wanted in the water. A lot of factors, but I\u2019m happy to be back,” she said of her high school senior year.<\/p>\n

“Going into the Olympic Trials and Olympics, I was a rookie, and nobody really knew who I was, so I was kind of going through that whole couple months with the mentality that, \u2018I\u2019ve never done this. I have so many chances to do it.\u2019 Once I had done it, I kind of got in my head. I was like, \u2018I\u2019ve done this. I have to do it again.\u2019 I just kind of switched that mentality around to, \u2018I\u2019ve done this, and I have nothing to prove.\u2019 So just swimming freely is the biggest thing.”<\/p>\n

As expected, this race brought huge points for the Longhorns with Elendt claiming third in 57.29. Texas had fallen from second place to third behind Stanford, but the 36-point haul from Jacoby and Elendt pushed Texas back into the second spot by 26.5 points over the Cardinal. Jacoby admitted later that arriving at a school with an already-established internationally-ranked breaststroker could have been tricky, but she and Elendt have quickly developed a close and supportive bond.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve been committed [to Texas] for a long time, so she\u2019s known that I was coming for a long time,” Jacoby said. “I\u2019ve known that she was there for a long time. I was definitely a little bit nervous going into Texas because that relationship could have gone very many ways. We have a great friendship, and we\u2019re going to live together next year.<\/p>\n

Dobler, the winner of this event last year, ended up fourth in 57.50, well off her 2022 winning time of 56.93 and also her season-best mark of 56.94 that still ranks first nationally. NC State’s\u00a0Heather MacCausland<\/strong> was not far off the pace of the headliners as she grabbed fifth in 57.74.<\/p>\n