5 Stories to Watch at 2015 NCSA Junior National Championships (PSYCH SHEETS)

Psych Sheets are out for the 2015 NCSA Spring Junior National Championships that will run in Orlando, Florida from March 17th-21st, and this meet looks prepared to continue its lofty stature among short course meets with a big, and deep, field. This year’s meet will be run in short course yards in prelims and in long course meters in finals.

See Psych Sheets Here.

Below, we’ve picked out 5 story lines to keep a special eye on, but the reality is that every race at this meet is worth watching.

1. Men’s 200 Free

The seed times tell the story at the top. NCAP’s Andrew Seliskar (1:35.17), Nova of Virginia’s Townley Haas (1:35.19), and the Countryside YMCA’s Grant House (1:35.28) will hold center-lane in the three circle-seeded heats, and all three will be shooting to go under that 1:35 banner in prelims (in a junior meet). House, specifically, will shoot for Maxime Rooney’s 1:34.57 National Age Group Record.

This very well could be half of the American 800 free relay (prelims + finals group) in 2020 or 2024.

2. She’s Not Rowdy’s Daughter, but She’s Good

Rowdy Gaines is now a sort-of figure head of this meet as the vice president of aquatics for the YMCA of Central Florida – who is hosting the meet at the Orlando YMCA. Representing the Gaines name in the pool now will be 14-year old Riley Gaines (no relation). The Excel Aquatics (Tennessee) swimmer has six entries (50/100/200 free, 50/100/200 fly) and is the highest-seeded 14-year old in all of those races aside from the 50 free. Riley is more of a butterflier, as compared to Rowdy, who was famous as a freestyler – she’s seeded 13th in the 50 fly and 15th in the 100 fly with a 54.91.

3. Anything Andrew Seliskar Swims – Especially the 400 IM and 200 Breaststroke

The 200 free will be a fun battle for Andrew Seliskar, but the real tale of his meet will come in the 400 IM and 200 breaststroke. He broke National Age Group Records (and landed a spot among the top 10 in history) in both races at last weekend’s PVS Senior Champs, with a 3:37.52 in the 400 IM and a 1:51.57 in the 200 breaststrokes. If his post-meet interview is to be believed, he was only on four days’ worth of rest.

If he can get down below 3:36.26 in the 400 IM, then he’ll surpass Michael Phelps’ best-ever time in this event (at any age). 3:35.98 jumps Tyler Clary for 2nd all-time, and Chase Kalisz’s American Record is 3:34.50. In the 200 breaststroke, a 1:51.40 will move him into the top 10 swims of all-time, with Cody Miller’s 1:51.03 the closest reasonable target (2nd all-time).

He’ll be challenged by teammate Carsten Vissering in the breaststroke races for the last time in yards in short course before they become Pac-12 rivals next fall, with Vissering at USC and Seilskar at Cal.

Don’t sleep on Seliskar’s “off” races either, if they can be called that. A National Age Group Record is in the crosshairs in the 100 fly and 200 fly as well.

4. Aquajets Coming of Age

The Aquajets Swim Team in suburban Minneapolis has had a group of girls that have rolled through National Age Group relay records since they were 11-12’s five years ago, and now that group is hitting their junior and senior years of high school, amazingly has stayed largely intact, and is ready to really explode. The headliner of the group at present is Zoe Avestruz, a Minnesota commit, who could be reminiscent of what her former teammate Rachel Bootsma did at this meet before heading off to Cal. Avestruz enters the meet as the top seed in the 100 back by a full second (51.98), and is also highly seeded in the 200 back, 100 free, 100 fly, 50 fly, and 50 back. Bootsma’s team and 17-18 National Age Group Record of 50.54 is still far off, but Avestruz has a shot of joining the 50-second club.

5. Men’s 50 Free – Swimmers Seek to Join Jones Under 20 Seconds

The high school class of 2014 was rife with swimmers who had been faster than 20 seconds in the 50 yard free. The class of 2015 took a step back in that regard, with only one current high school senior having been faster than 20 (Notre Dame commit Tate Jackson, who did so at the American Short Course Championships in Austin last week).

The only swimmer at this year’s NCSA’s seeded at faster than 20 seconds is actually a junior, NCAP’s James Jones, and he’s the only one who went sub-20 at last year’s meet. There are at least a dozen, though, who have a shot at joining him next week. That includes his NCAP teammates Andrew Seliskar (20.06) and John Shebat (20.09), who are the #2 and #3 seeds and both high school seniors.

In total, 12 swimmers are seeded at better than 20.5 in this race, and that doesn’t include Tabahn Afrik, who was a 20.45 at Winter Juniors but didn’t update his entry time.

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9 years ago

Thanks for the heads up on what to watch for at NCSA next week! Should be a lot of excitement from both ends of the pool.

Pvk
9 years ago

NCAP boys have unprecedented relay power- could go 1:18/2:53-2:54 in the free relays and their medley splits add up to about a 1:25(rolling starts) and 3:09(flat starts)

VASwim
Reply to  Pvk
9 years ago

If they all show up in Orlando that is……

Reply to  VASwim
9 years ago

This is true… a couple of them showed up a few days into the meet.

Reply to  Hulk Swim
9 years ago

(Last year)

NCAP Dad
Reply to  Hulk Swim
9 years ago

They all left this morning. 🙂

9 years ago

Holy cow.

KT
9 years ago

Also we could see an extremely fast 200medley relay with Shebat Vissering Seliskar and Jones going 21.71, 23.89, 20.24, 19.65 all from relays in High School Meets, meaning that a full shave and taper and the environment should knock them all down a few tenths. Right now all their splits added up would be a 1:25.49 which would have them sitting 19th at NCAAs before their big taper meet…

TheTroubleWithX
Reply to  KT
9 years ago

Which means they should demolish the 15-18 and 17-18 NAG record. Looks like it’s currently 1:28.29, held by SwimMAC from 2012.

9 years ago

john shebat split 19.3 on a relay at states, he is ready to go under 20.

Reply to  vastates
9 years ago

If that’s the case holy cow will that relay be amazing on Tuesday…

3x guys in the 19 low range on a rolling start… (Jones, Seliskar and Shebat) who’s the 4th? Can they get a 4th guy to leadoff in 20 Low? They could theoretically be 1:19 low Or 1:18 high. Wow.

KT
Reply to  Hulk Swim
9 years ago

Grant Goddard is the next fastest and he goes a 20.63 flat start from the 2014 Tom Dolan Invitational

Reply to  KT
9 years ago

Wow.

SwimFL
9 years ago

I’ve swum at this pool all of my life. It is just one 50 meter pool with a dive well. There is an instructional pool but I don’t think they are allowing athletes access during the meet. They have to run two SCY competition pools in order to accommodate all athletes entered in the meet. On Tuesday the women have 6 heats of the mile and the men have 11 heats of the 1000. I can’t find an exact number of athletes, but the number is outrageous for the facility size. One could keep it SCY for finals, as they would for a Florida LSC championship meet but why not do something different to give the kids an opportunity to… Read more »

bobo gigi
9 years ago

Before that meet next week, we have other interesting meets this week. This time either everything in yards or everything in long course. 🙂

SCY

PV 14 and under championships.
Swimmers to watch: 12-year-old Brett Feyerick/13-year-old Madelyn Donohoe
Psych sheet
http://www.pvswim.org/1415meet/15-58-psych.pdf
Live results
http://www.pvswim.org/realtime/2015JOs/

Florida age group championships
Swimmers to watch: 13-year-old Christina Cianciolo/14-year-old Lucas Kravchenko/12-year-old Olivia McMurray/14-year-old Isabel Ivey
Psych sheet
http://www.fastswimresults.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/psych.pdf

Federal Way sectionals
Swimmers to watch: Hannah Leach/Ethan Dang/Isabella Battistoni/Emma Schanz/Kimberly Williams
Psych sheet
http://www.pns.org/pnws2/__eventform__/548775_psychsheet_3.9.pdf
Live results

Reply
bobo gigi

I forgot Michigan 12 and under championships with 12-year-old Sophie Housey
Psych sheet
http://www.riptide.org/mirr/UserFiles/File/2015%2012&u%20state%20championship%20psych%20sheet.pdf

Luigi
Reply to  bobo gigi
9 years ago

There is also the Trofeo Cittá di Milano this weekend, with Paltrinieri, Pellegrini, Orsi, Heemskerk, Bovell, Jakabos among others

bobo gigi
9 years ago

Ok, I see that Mr Keith has updated his article and confirmed that news.
SCY in prelims/LCM in finals
WHY?
Why they do everything to kill their winter junior national championships????????????
Next December, there will not be one US short course junior championship but 2! So the best will not swim against each other.
And now these NCSA junior nationals, the second best winter national meet for US juniors, invent a pretty weird format.
I’m always for the simplicity. Why remove almost all the interest like that?

Reply to  bobo gigi
9 years ago

it’s common in the year leading up to Olympic Trials… but in with you Bobo… if we are doing it for OT cuts it should be LC/LC…

bobo gigi
Reply to  Hulk Swim
9 years ago

Thanks for the answer. I suspected that the reason was about LCM times for olympic trials.
But I’m still not happy.
Most of these American juniors are not ready to swim crazy fast LCM times in March, during the short course season. Their LCM national championships is next August! Let them swim fast in yards now. And not only in the morning but also in finals. I don’t want to watch records in prelims. And usually you go faster in the evening in finals. Except Beijing 2008. 😉

gator
Reply to  bobo gigi
9 years ago

Yes, it would make more sense for it to be LC/LC, except that this meet has a HUGE number of splashes, and there is no way to manage that # at this facility. It actually works out pretty well considering that. Kids that make finals have the added bonus of setting their OT standard, or at least making a summer LC meet.

Reply to  gator
9 years ago

I get the splashes… which is why I’d prefer SC/SC… but if we are doing finals LC, I’d love to see the right 30/40 kids getting back at night. Some solid LC swimmers with shots at cuts won’t earn a spot with SC in the morning. Won’t be tons of kids but it’s a few and that’s enough for me.

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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