16-Year-Old Rowan Cox Takes Down South Texas LSC Record in 200 Fly at Jingle Bell Splash

2023 TXLA Jingle Bell Splash

• Dec. 7-10, 2023
• Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center
  • Austin, Texas
• SCY (25 yards)
• Results on MeetMobile: “2023 ST TXLA Jingle Bell Splash”

Longhorn Aquatics 16-year-old Rowan Cox clocked a new South Texas LSC record in the 200-yard butterfly among six new lifetime bests at the 2023 Jingle Bell Splash earlier this month.

Cox won the 200 fly in 1:46.41, dropping nearly three seconds off his previous-best 1:49.37 from last December and taking more than a second off Mason Tenney‘s old 15-16 LSC record of 1:47.47 from 2014. Cox now ranks 51st in the U.S. boys’ 15-16 national age group (NAG) rankings.

Cox also rose up the NAG rankings in the 100 fly, posting a personal-best 47.66 to rank 56th all-time in his age group. His previous-best 47.82 was from his 3rd-place finish at February’s UIL 6A State Championships as a freshman at James Bowie High School in Austin. He is within a tenth of the South Texas LSC record (47.58) set by Sonny Wang last March.

Cox put his freestyle range on display with more best times in the 50 free (20.60), 200 free (1:37.43), 1000 free (9:19.09), and 1650 free (15:22.77). He lowered his lifetime best in the mile by almost a minute and a half as his only other 1650 swim on record was a 16:49.51 from 2020. He also dropped nine seconds off his previous-best 1000 free from October, almost two seconds off his previous-best 200 free from last month, and seven-tenths of a second off his previous-best 50 free from last December.

Cox is coming off a huge summer of long-course swimming highlighted by a junior national title in the 100-meter fly (53.10).

Longhorn Aquatics 18-year-old Andrew Zou also threw down some impressive times at the Jingle Bell Splash. The Princeton commit lowered his best 200 breast time to 1:56.18, dropping .41 seconds off his previous-best 1:56.59 from March. In the 100 breast, Zou registered a 54.41 that just missed his personal-best 54.36 from last December. He added lifetime bests in the 50 fly (23.44), 50 free (21.25), 200 IM (1:48.82), and 100 fly (50.06), where he dropped nearly two seconds off his previous-best 52.04 from last December.

On the girls’ side, Whitecaps of Westlake 18-year-old Riley Morgan recorded personal-best times in both the 100 back and 200 back. The Virginia Tech commit dropped almost a second in the 100 back and just about a tenth in the 200 back off her previous bests from March.

Waterloo Swimming 11-year-old Katherine Coxe dropped nearly a second in the 50 back with a personal-best 29.45, improving upon her previous-best 30.31 from October. She still has more than a year to chase the 11-12 LSC record of 27.12 by Jada Scott in 2018.

Palo Alto Stanford Aquatics 17-year-old Kelsey Leung lowered her lifetime best in the 200 fly by more than half a second. She reached the wall in 2:01.76 after owning a previous best of 2:02.43 from July.

Whitecaps of Westlake 16-year-old Celeste Donegan dropped more than a second in the 100 back in just a month. She came in with a best time of 57.84 that she lowered to 56.51 en route to a 2nd-place finish. Donegan added best times in the 100 free (51.50), 200 free (1:50.85), 50 back (27.58), and 100 fly (57.85).