SwimMAC Carolina’s Lauren Rhodes has committed to stay in-state with the North Carolina State Wolfpack.
Braden Holloway’s squad has been slowly gaining on the top-tier teams in the ACC, which for the most part are closely concentrated in the states of North Carolina and Virginia. That means a lot of bloody recruiting battles for the rich local talent grounds, and NC State has started to win some of those, including this very big one.
Rhodes, who prior to her time at SwimMAC trained with another very good program in the Parkland Aquatic Club (her former coach there Erik Posegay now coaches at NBAC), has won 11 North Carolina class 3A event titles: one individual title shy of the maximum in three years. She’s also been a part of three team championships in three years in North Carolina’s second-biggest classification with Charlotte Catholic High School.
Rhodes is primarily a freestyler, with yards bests of 23.0, 49.7, and 1:47.9 in the 50 through 200.
NC State already has two very good freestyles in Riki Bonnema and Hannah Freyman, who will be a junior and a senior respectively by the time Rhodes arrives on campus, but neither really stretches as well into the 100 or 200 yet as Rhodes does.
This year, in fact NC State doesn’t return anybody who was within a second if Rhodes in the 200 in a flat start.
Rhodes is also part of two National Age Group Record setting relays. She anchored SwimMAC to the 15-16/15-18 records in the 200 yard free relay in 2012, and then anchored them again to a 17-18/15-18 record in the 200 meter free relay.
Even without improvement between now and then, she’d score high in three B Finals at the ACC Championships. With improvements, she could be in the neighborhood of 30-35 individual points, and 3+ relays: a huge boon to this team from a freshman.
