College Station Sectionals Roundup: Big weekend for youngsters Daniela Georges, Regan Barney

The Speedo Champions Series made a stop in College Station, Texas over the weekend, with a bunch of great swims coming mostly from junior competitors. We’ve written about a handful of these already, but to refresh, here are the 6 NAG record swims that happened in College Station:

• Michael Andrew’s 200 fly of 1:46.29
• Michael Andrew’s 400 IM of  3:52.08
• Michael Andrew’s 100 back both in prelims and finals
• Aquazot’s 200 medley relay of 1:31.90
• Aquazot’s 400 medley relay of 3:18.91

In addition to these swims, here’s a quick rundown of the meet, with some of the bigger names and more eye-opening times from the weekend’s action:

Full results are available on Meet Mobile under “USA Swimming Speedo Champions Series” at College Station, TX.

Thursday Night

The first night featured the 1000 freestyles, both of which put up some pretty fast junior times. 16-year-old Karling Hemstreet of Nitro dropped more than 20 seconds off her lifetime best to win the girls event in 9:50.09, just beating Loveland (Colorado) 17-year-old Eryn Eddy and Aquazot 16-year-old Brittany Kahn.

For the boys, Logan Houck, a 17-year-old from the Sandpipers of Nevada, went 8:59.44 (a 20+ second drop for him as well) to beat Nitro 15-year-old Sean Grieshop.

Friday Night

Texas A&M senior Sarah Henry was in the house, swimming and winning the 500 free in her home pool in what must have been a bit of a tune-up for the NCAA Championships later this month. (With SECs being the very first conference championship to go off, maybe Henry wanted to get another competition in to shake off rust during the month-or-so long break before NCAAs). At any rate, Henry was pretty close to her SEC time, going 4:37.43 (her season best is 4:36.53).

Also notable in that race was Aquazot 16-year-old Daniela Georges, who snuck under 4:40 for the first time in her career to take second at 4:39.82.

Future Ohio State Buckeye Brayden Seal of Frisco Aquatics won the men’s event with a 4:20.27, touching out Stanford commit Curtis Ogren by three tenths.

Ogren’s current Palo Alto and future Stanford teammate Ally Howe won the girls 200 back in 1:52.74 and returned to win the 200 fly just a few events later with a 1:56.68, both PRs and dominating wins. (She would win the 100s of those strokes later in the weekend as well, going 52.90 in the back and 53.72 in the fly – neither of them best times, but still very quick).

The boys event went to North Texas Nadadores swimmer Jonathan Roberts, a future Texas Longhorn, in a personal-best 1:42.37. He beat Corey Okubo and Thomas Smith of Aquazot – those two were both 1:43s.

A few other notable swims from that night: Roberts’ teammate Brett Ringgold, another Texas commit, went 43.46 to win the 100 free (just off his PR) and Okubo went 1:44.81 to win the 200 fly.

Saturday Night

Daniela Georges, the 16-year-old from Aquazot who took second in the 500, made it to the top of the field in the 200 free. She went 1:45.83 to beat a field that included Longhorn Aquatics’ Quinn Carrozza, Howe and Eddy. She also won the 400 IM later in the night, going 4:13.38, another lifetime-best.

Second in that race was 14-year-0ld Regan Barney of Austin Swim Club, who had an outstanding weekend. Barney went 1:57.67 in the 200 back, 2:03.76 in the 200 fly and would also put up a 2:02.94 in the 200 IM later in the meet, all PRs.

Brayden Seal won the boys event in 1:37.53 with 15-year-old Sean Greishop of Nitro taking second in 1:37.70, a drop of over a second. The fastest time of the event came out of the B final, though, where Jonathan Roberts went 1:36.28 for North Texas.

Curtis Ogren dominated the men’s 400 IM with a quick 3:43.64, shaving another half-second off his fastest time ever.

Sunday Night

Roadrunner Aquatic’s Brock Bonetti cut two tenths off his best to beat Ringgold for the 100 back title. The future Texas collegiate rivals (Bonetti will attend A&M, while Ringgold is a future Texas Longhorn) went 47.66 and 47.76, respectively.

Ringgold came back to win the 50 free, dipping under 20 for the first time in 2014 with a 19.89. Michael Andrew was second in that race, going 20.24.

Texas A&M junior Kelli Benjamin went 22.70 to win the 50 free. Ally Howe was also sub-23, going 22.97 for second.

Daniela Georges continued her great meet, breaking 2:00 for the first time in the 200 IM. The 16-year-old’s 1:58.97 topped Ally Howe by almost a second, and 14-year-old Regan Barney was third in 2:02.94.

Curtis Ogren won the 200 IM to add to his 400 IM win. His 1:47.05 wasn’t a lifetime-best, by was good enough to beat Corey Okubo and Michael Andrew.