14 Top-20 Seeds Scratch on Eve of SEC Championships

2019 SEC Championships

• Tuesday, February 19 – Saturday, February 23
• Gabrielsen Natatorium, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia (Eastern Time Zone)
• Defending Women’s Champion: Texas A&M (3x) (results)
• Defending Men’s Champion: Florida (6x) (results)
• Live results
• Live Video – SEC Network
• Championship Central

On the eve of the SEC Championships’ start on Tuesday in Athens, Georgia, there have been a few notable scratches from the meet.

The latest version of the psych sheet still has swimmers entered in more than the allowed events (those decisions don’t have to be made until the evening before prelims of those races), but full-meet scratches taking teams down to their roster limits are included in the latest versions.

View the latest psych sheets now.

We tracked scratches by swimmers that were seeded in the top 20 of events, and found 14 of them (we excluded one men’s platform diver, because the seeding for diving, especially on the platform, is a big sketchy).

Among the most notable is the scratch of Texas A&M junior Anthony Kim, who scored 49 points for the Aggies at last year’s meet, including a 7th-place finish in the 200 back. His highest seed this year was 19th in the 100 back (47.98).

There were also a significant scratch from a divers. Arkansas’ Maha Elissa Amer, a 1-meter specialist who was 4th in that event at last year’s SEC Championship meet, but didn’t score in either of the other disciplines, dropped the meet. She accounted for almost 10% of Arkansas’ non-relay points at last year’s SEC meet even though she only scored in 1 event. Arkansas was 10th at SECs last year, but have already broken a number of school records this year thanks to junior newcomer Anna Hopkins.

Other Scratches in the top 20 seeds:

• Dane Florea from Missouri, the 13th seed in the 400 IM, and 16th seed in the 200 fly.
• Florida junior Jillian Hatch, who was seeded 15th in the 200 free, is scratched out. She swam, but didn’t score, at last year’s SEC Championship meet.
• Missouri sophomore Grant Reed was the 17th seed in the 200 free, and is scratched out of the meet. He finished 14th in that race at SECs last year and was on Missouri’s 2nd-place 800 free relay. He swam on Missouri’s 400 and 800 free relays at NCAAs last season as well, earning honorable mention All-American honors as part of the 9th-place 800.
• Florida freshman Miguel Cancel, who was the 14th seed in the 200 fly, is out of the meet. That race was seeded to be the bulk of his individual scoring.
• Florida junior Chandler Bray, who was on the Gators’ 3rd-place 200 medley relay at NCAAs last year, is out of the meet. He was an SEC Champion in that same relay, and scored 23 points individually. His highest seed this year was 18th in the 100 breaststroke, which makes him the Gators’ 2nd-best bet in that event so far this season (by 1 spot behind senior Stanley Wu).
• Texas A&M sophomore Audrey McMurry, who was the 18th seed in the 1650 free, is out of the meet. That was the only event she was likely to score in.
• Her teammate Gabrielle Kopenski was in the same position, but as the 19th seed in the 1650 free.
• Florida junior Drew Clark, who would have been the 15th seed in the 1650 free, is out of the meet.
• Missouri junior Giovanni Gutierrez, the 18th seed in the 1650 free, is out of the meet.
• Texas A&M junior Jake Gibbons, the 19th seed in the 1650 free, is out of the meet. He was on the SEC roster last year, but missed scoring in the mile by 1 place and .99 seconds. He’s 8 seconds behind his seed time this season.
• Florida sophomore Ethan Beach, the 16th seed in the 200 back, is out of the meet.
• Griffin Schaetzle of Missouri, who scored 5 points at SECs last year, has scratched the meet. He was the 17th seed in the 200 back, but was only entered in 2 events pre-scratches.