2019 Clovis Pro Swim Series: SwimSquad Projections

2019 CLOVIS PRO SWIM SERIES

• June 12-15, 2019
• Clovis, CA
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• Psych Sheet
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FULL ROSTERS

SCORING FORMAT

• Prior to each meet, the captain will select 6 swimmers from their overall roster to score.
• Each of the six athletes is designated for one specific category, and can score in up to two events from that category. The categories are:
  • Free (50 through 1500)
  • Back (50 through 200)
  • Breast (50 through 200)
  • Fly (50 through 200)
  • IM (200 and 400, not the mystery order 200 IM)
  • Flex (any two races)
• An athlete must make the top 8 to score points:
  • 1st: 10
  • 2nd: 8
  • 3rd: 7
  • 4th: 5
  • 5th: 4
  • 6th: 3
  • 7th: 2
  • 8th: 1

Current Points

Clovis Outlook

Adams Family

Swimming for: NEGU Jessie Rees Foundation

• Active: Kelsi Dahlia, Erica Sullivan, Evie Pfeifer, Chris Wieser, Logan Houck
• Notable inactives: Michael Andrew, Olivia Smoliga, Josh Prenot, Margo Geer, Lilly King, Jacob Pebley, Regan Smith

Kelsi Dahlia is one of the biggest names actually competing in Clovis, and if she does indeed appear, she’ll be a huge point-getter for Adams. The 100 fly is the must-start, and we’ll go with the 200 fly as a second event, if only because we’d be more concerned about Louise Hansson beating her in a 50 fly than anyone in the small 200 fly field.

Evie Pfeifer is a better IM start than she appears: she’s actually the #2 seed in the 200 IM and #6 in the 400 IM. She’s only swum one long course meet since the conclusion of college season, a local meet where she swam fairly well.

Then it’s a choice between three freestylers. Erica Sullivan is easily the best bet of the three, so she starts at freestyle. We’ll go with Logan Houck, who hasn’t swum a long course meet yet this year, over Chris Wieser. They’re pretty similar, but Wieser is probably better in the 400/800 and Houck better in the 800/1500, and the 1500 is a much less crowded field than the 400.

Jaeg-Train

Swimming for: Covenant House

• Active: Matt Grevers, Mallory Comerford, Devon Nowicki, Daniel Roy
• Notable inactives: Katie Ledecky, Melanie Margalis, Caeleb Dressel, Andrew Wilson, Annie Lazor

Jaeger only has four swimmers active, but he can get all four into his starting lineup to match Adams. Matt Grevers is the easy choice – he’s gotta be the backstroker, and he only has two backstroke entries.

Mallory Comerford will start at free – the 100 free is an obvious choice, and the question comes down to the 50 or the 200. Fans get really hung up on pigeonholing great 200-yard freestylers into the 200-meter free. I think that happens a lot with Comerford. (It’s also happening with Dean Farris). Comerford is an elite 200-yard freestyler… but that translates better to her 100-meter free, which is clearly better than her 200-meter free. (The same could be said of Farris, who I believe is a much bigger threat for the American 4×100 free relay than he is for the 4×200 in 2020). That said, the 50 free field in Clovis is tougher than the 200 free field, so it’s kind of a wash. We’re taking the 100/200 this weekend, but don’t be surprised if Comerford ultimately winds up better in the 50 free than the 200.

The we slot in the two breaststrokers into the breast and flex spots. Devon Nowicki just had a meet where he went 2:27 in the 200 breast, so don’t even think about starting him there. Daniel Roy benefits from a really weak men’s 200 IM field, his seed time is almost two years old and the IMs were the only events in which he dropped time as a college freshman.

Beisel Bunch

Swimming for: USA Swimming Foundation

• Active: Leah Smith, Townley Haas, Michael Chadwick, Kendyl Stewart, Isabelle Stadden, Justin Wright, Justin Ress, Jack Levant, Tate Jackson, Trey Freeman
• Notable inactives: Zane Grothe, Kathleen Baker, Hali Flickinger, Blake Pieroni, Kevin Cordes, Will Licon, Andrew Seliskar, Abbey Weitzeil

Beisel has a bunch of actives, but it’s not going to help much, because 6 of the 10 are primarily freestylers. With that in mind, we’re going to make the higher-ceiling choice to use Leah Smith in the IM role. Smith is only entered in three events: the 200 free, 800 free and 400 IM. She was pretty great in the 400 IM in Richmond, and most of the good Americans are absent this week (though she’s got to deal with a few good Canadians).

That essentially narrows down our freestyle options to Haas, Jackson and Chadwick. (Levant had his first swim back from a season-ending injury last week, but wasn’t great. Freeman has been OK this long course season, but not on the level of the other three). Michael Chadwick has the best season-bests of the bunch (21.9/48.8 in April and 22.4/49.2 just a couple weeks ago), so we’ll roll with him. This feels like the kind of low-pressure, in-season meet that Tate Jackson usually blows up at, so we’ll throw in into the flex spot. Haas is a high-upside play who was good at the Champions Series two weeks ago (49.8/1:47.0), but he’s also a very hit-or-miss guy when he’s not rested.

Because Ress has to deal with Grevers in both sprint backstrokes, we’ll take Isabelle Stadden in the back role. Her two PSS appearances this year have been very good – in Bloomington, she was second in the 100 and 200 back to the now-absent Regan Smith.

Both flyers face pretty tough fields. Wright has always been a good 200 fly scorer, but he has to face Urlando there, and he struggles to score in the 100. Kendyl Stewart has some tough sprint flyers, but is likely to score in both, so we’ll start her.

DiRadSquad

Swimming for: USO

• Active: Luca Urlando
• Notable inactives: Chase Kalisz, Ryan Murphy, Jack Conger, Nathan Adrian, Simone Manuel, Nic Fink, Ella Eastin, Cody Miller

It’s the one-man show for the DiRadSquad, which is all-but-locked in for last place in this year’s series. It’s not DiRado’s fault, per se. She drafted Kalisz, who was the clear-cut #1 pick coming out of last year. But a points format change gave Kalisz little incentive to show up at all of the stops, and he spent awhile ignoring his native 400 IM. Compounding the bad luck was the absence of the never-absent Nathan Adrian, who is one of the most consistent swimmers in history – it took a bout with cancer to knock him out of his consistent Pro Swim Series streak, and even that didn’t sideline him for long. Murphy was also less present on the tour this year, perhaps owing to the new stops being a lot of travel time for California-based pros.

As for this week, we’ll take Luca Urlando in the 200 fly and 200 IM. It’s tempting to put him in the 100 fly out of habit, but look at that 200 IM field and tell me you’d put money on anyone other than Urlando.

FULL PROJECTED ROSTERS

Believe it or not, we’ve actually got both Beisel and Jaeger outscoring the leading Adams Family in Clovis. The question is whether it will be enough. Adams leads Jaeger by 29, which is probably just too much over overcome in one meet, unless Jaeger gets something like 7 wins between Comerford, Nowicki, Grevers and Roy and Adams gets zeroes from swimmers like Houck or Pfeifer. (A Kelsi Dahlia absence could completely change the game).

Beisel probably has the best shot to move up as a team, with only 14 points between her team and Jaeger’s. If she picks the right freestylers and if Stadden wins both backstrokes, there’s a chance that happens.

It’s pretty much curtains for DiRado, who will try to break 300 series points as a moral victory – Urlando needs two finishes of second or higher to make that happen.