Jack Conger, representing Our Lady of Good Counsel High School, won a pair of individual Catholic HIgh School national championships this weekend in Baltimore, Maryland as he prepares to enter his taper for the 2013 Metropolitan High School Championship meet in February. Though labeled as a “national championship meet,” the event is largely made up of teams from the Middle Atlantic region.
Conger has been known to swim some different events in high school competition outside of his primary 100 backstroke, though we’d stop short of calling them “off” events, as he’s one of the best in the country in about everything he swims.
The first race of the day weekend for him was the 200 IM, where he was a 1:48.18 – a lifetime best by 5 seconds. He’s only swum that race a small handful of times since 2010 in yards (5-or-so), but with the impressive speed he’s shown in backstroke, fly, or freestyle the time wasn’t unexpected.
Later in the meet, he would win the 100 free in 44.27. That’s the best time he’s had in official high school competition, though he was about a second better at Tom Dolan in December. Behind him in 2nd place was Billy Beard from Malvern Prep in Pennsylvania, who swam a 46.63 as just a freshman. That’s a lifetime best for the 15-year old who is also headed toward his championship season.
He was much quicker on the 400 free relay, where he led Good Counsel to a win in 42.76 swimming the anchor leg. He also split a 20.67 on the butterfly leg of the medley as the Falcons won that relay in 1:34.96.
One of his teammates on that medley was Leo Mercer who won the 100 breaststroke in 59.36. Carsten Vissering, from Georgetown Prep, would’ve given him a run for his money, but focused on the sprint freestyles at this meet instead. Showing how good the sophomore is though, he split a 25.4 on his team’s medley relay.
Full meet results are available on Meet Mobile.
That meet isn’t in March. It is in early February of I’m not mistaken.
That meet isn’t in March. It is in early February if I’m not mistaken.
Ah yes. The high school winter championship season has begun. Always some of the best. We will see how the winter champ season stacks up against the Bolles school dominance of the fall.
its february 9 and 10th
When is Missy Franklin high school championship? When is Katie Ledecky’s? Is Lia Neal swimming high school? Jack Conger will surely impress as always!
Ledecky’s high school championship is also metros, it’s a really fast meet.
Colorado high school state championships for Missy are February 8-9. It’s always at high altitude so we shouldn’t expect crazy times from her. But with Missy anything is possible. We’ll see.
Wow that’ll be a fast weekend of HS swimming
Lia Neal didn’t swim high school, NYS HS Champs for girls are in the fall.
The biggest question today for me about Jack Conger is : which race will be his best in 2016? He will be physically mature and will be ready for big damages during this olympic year. Today he’s by far still more a backstroker. Perhaps his best race will be the 100 free or the 200 free or the 100 fly or the 200 fly. I continue to think he reminds me a little of Yannick Agnel at the same age. No many muscles, a long body. I bet on a big future for him on freestyle. We’ll see his development in the next 4 years.
Would be very interesting to see his development for sure !!!
going to swim for Eddie. it will be the 2free
200 free might be a safer bet.. for 100 free.. 2016 we will probably see the strongest field ever.. Don´t know if he will be already mature enough for that kind of competition, and even among the guys of his age he is still not on the same level of Sedov Mcevoy and Santhana on this particular race..
Anothe questions.
These guys will swim the Final World Junior this year?
For sure Brazil Russia Australia and JPN will send their best field.. how will USA do? Most of these guys will try to use this championship as a prepartion for 2013 World Championships ( at least guys like Santana and Altarmir Medlo said so cause they are focusing on being the 4th relay member on Worlds)
The US has enjoyed such an embarassment of riches with Phelps and Lochte in 2008 and in 2012. Now come Conger and Murphy for 2016 and beyond. Not fair.
I think Conger and Murphy are great young swimmers but definitely not quite on par with Phelps and Lochte. A bit of an unfair comparison. Murphy will probably mainly be a backstroker not a multi-eventer like Ryan and Michael. I think he has enough on his plate just being compared to the likes of Peirsol. Conger has more speed and more multi-event potential … but it’s still just potential right now.
With the quantity of high lever swimmers specialized in multiple events.. seeing a guy like phelps will probably be very rare.
Phelps were the most gifted swimmer ever but he also had his share of lucky (Crocker/Thorpe/hoogenband stopping on their prime) and also very talented teammates to help he acheve his superb results.. The Fame of Phelps itself brought many new swimmers to the field who probably never put much thought on swimming and that happened on global scale.. not US only..
Such a combination again is very unlikely to happen..
Metros are late february(26th), although there is an earlier championship that is basically the precursor to metros which takes place in early february.
metros is the 9 and 10th of february
Conger and Ledecky had some fast swims at their divisional type meet on Saturday. Should be interesting to see those two’s times next week