Pair of Montanans Verbally Commit to Utah

Two swimmers from a relative bumper crop of Montana-based recruits have verbally committed to the University of Utah.

The men picked up a pledge from Peter Kotson of the Helena Lions Swim Team, and the women added Jenna Marsh from the Billings Aquatic Club.

They add to what already looks like another great year of recruiting for the Utes. Not their first year of solid recruiting recently, but perhaps the one most heavily based in American recruits.

Kotson is a distance freestyler, with yards bests of 1:40.50 4:25.72, 9:12.83, and 15:16.85 in the 200, 500, 1000, and 1650 yard freestyles, respectively.

He is on the young end of his class, and currently holds the Montana LSC 15-16 records for all of the freestyle races aside from the 100. In addition, given how close he is, during his senior season he should break most of the 17-19 LSC freestyle records too (he already is much faster than the 500, 1000, and 1650 records), and could even challenge the 100 and 200 free records held by National Teamer David Cromwell.

He doesn’t step much outside of the freestyles, but freestyles are where both Utah, and their new head coach Joe Dykstra, have built strong reputations in the last two years, so this seems like a good fit.

Aside from that, the Pac-12 is a conference where there’s a relatively-easy path to scoring big points in distance races – Kotson’s best time would have been 8th at last year’s championship in the 1650. Given that he dropped a full minute in that race as a junior alone, and 14 seconds in his 500 yard free, he looks like he’ll probably wind up as an NCAA qualifier as a freshman.

Marsh could fall into that category as well, and is the state’s top recruit in the class of 2014.

She, however, is more of a sprint freestyler, having been 23.4 and 50.5 in the 50 and 100 yard freestyles as a junior. She also has a best of 54.0 in the 100 yard fly, and like Kotson holds multiple Montana Swimming records.

With the graduation of Traycie Swartz after this season, Marsh will immediately be in the discussions for at least four Utah championship relays. She’ll surely be in both the 200 and the 400 free relays, and her 100 fly time is faster than anyone at Utah was last year (though their leader Petra Soininen was a 54.1 as just a freshman).

That means that Dykstra and his staff will have some freedom and flexibility to play the ‘hot hand’ in the spring of 2015 and put together some solid medleys.