AUSTIN, Texas, December 4. UNIVERSITY of Arizona sophomore Lyndon Ferns — a virtual unknown — shocked the field to win the 50 free on the first day of the three-day University of Texas Invitational.<\/p>\n
The meet is using an unusual format: qualifying is swum in short course yards, while the finals are swum long course meters. Ferns took advantage of the dual-venue format to record the fastest times — by far — this year in both. In the prelims, he swam a blistering 19.22 for 50 yards; in the finals, he stroked 22.32 for 50 meters. Cal's Duje Draganja was second in both sessions, clocking 22.77 at night after going 19.68 in the morning.<\/p>\n
Shelly Ripple made her debut in her comeback effort here and the ex-Stanford star was impressive, winning the 100m fly in 1:00.13 (52.43y in prelims. Texas' Sarah Wanazek was second in 1:00.87 (52.83y in prelims).<\/p>\n
The men's 100 fly went to world record-holder Ian Crocker in 52.94, after he qualified fourth (48.20y).<\/p>\n
ASU's Agnes Kovacs, Olympic gold medalist for Hungary in the 200m breast in Sydney, took the 200 IM in 2:15.96 (2:00.93y in prelims). Tanica Jamison, who qualified first in 1:59.73, could only manage fifth in the long course final, 2:20.31. Olympian Tommy Hannan took the men's 200 medley in 2:04.64 after posting the #1 prelim time, 1:48.81.<\/p>\n
The 400 free was owned by the USC Trojans. Teammates Kaitlin Sandeno (4:13.03) and Kalyn Keller (4:14.43) went one-two in the women's event, with Keller posting a 4:42.09 for 500 yards in prelims. Arizona's Emily Mason had the top qualifying time in prelims with a nation-leading 4:42.07, but opted to scratch the final. The Trojans took the top three spots in the men's race, with Erik Vendt (3:52.49) leading the way, followed by Ous Mellouli (3:53.51) and Larsen Jensen (3:54.93).<\/p>\n
Texas took three of the four relays: women's 200 free (1:44.35) and 400 medley (4:13.78) and men's 400 medley (3:48.40). Cal prevented a Longhorn relay sweep by winning the men's 200 free (1:31.23).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
AUSTIN, Texas, December 4. UNIVERSITY of Arizona sophomore Lyndon Ferns — a virtual unknown — shocked the field to win the 50 free on the first day of the three-day<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66208,"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":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n