{"id":649878,"date":"2026-08-09T16:27:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T23:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=649878"},"modified":"2026-08-09T16:27:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T23:27:17","slug":"ymca-national-finalist-brayden-hale-sends-2027-verbal-to-wvu-mountaineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/ymca-national-finalist-brayden-hale-sends-2027-verbal-to-wvu-mountaineers\/","title":{"rendered":"YMCA National Finalist Brayden Hale Sends 2027 Verbal to WVU Mountaineers\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>YMCA National Finalist Brayden Hale Sends 2027 Verbal to WVU Mountaineers\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>NEW COMMIT:\u00a0<\/strong>West Virginia University has received a new verbal commitment for the 2027-28 season and beyond from\u00a0<strong>Brayden Hale\u00a0<\/strong>of Wallingford, Conn. Hale is a Junior National qualifier who excels in IM.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding his commitment, he said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000080\"><strong>\u201cI\u2019m extremely excited and blessed to announce my verbal commitment to continue my academic and athletic career at West Virginia University! First, I would like to thank God for his guidance, along with my family, friends, and teammates for their constant support throughout this journey. I also want to thank Coach Rob and Coach Sean for helping shape me into the person I am today. Lastly, I would like to give a huge thank you to Coach Brent, Coach Michael, Coach Sydney, Coach James, and the rest of the WVU coaching staff for this incredible opportunity! LETS GO MOUNTAINEERS!!&#8221;<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hale trains year-round with Cheshire YMCA Sea Dog Swim Club. He most recently competed at YMCA Long Course Nationals where he earned bronze in the 200m breast and 200m IM while placing fourth in the 200m fly and 400m IM. Back in March, he had four top-12 finishes at YMCA Short Course Nationals.<\/p>\n<p>His best times include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>400 IM &#8211; 3:57.54<\/li>\n<li>200 IM &#8211; 1:50.80<\/li>\n<li>200 fly &#8211; 1:51.14<\/li>\n<li>200 breast &#8211; 2:02.65<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Mountaineers finished seventh at the 2026 Big 12 Championships.<\/p>\n<p><i>If you have a commitment to share, please send a photo and quote via email to hs@swimmingworld.com.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>YMCA National Finalist Brayden Hale Sends 2027 Verbal to WVU Mountaineers\u00a0 NEW COMMIT:\u00a0West Virginia University has received a new verbal commitment for the 2027-28 season and beyond from\u00a0Brayden Hale\u00a0of Wallingford,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":649879,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[61683,138167,2754,53930],"class_list":["post-649878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school","tag-agon-high-school-recruits-page","tag-brayden-hale","tag-west-virginia","tag-wvu"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - 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