Minnesota Age Group Record Holder Mickayla Hinkle Verbally Commits to Duke

Braden Keith
by Braden Keith 8

October 07th, 2014 ACC, College, News

Mickayla Hinkle of the St. Croix Swim Club has verbally committed to Duke.

Mickayla Hinkle of the St. Croix Swim Club has verbally committed to Duke.

Mickayla Hinkle from the St. Croix Swim Club in Minnesota has verbally committed to the Duke Blue Devils.

Hinkle, who does not swim high school, is the fastest 15-16 in Minnesota history in both the 200 yard backstroke and the 100 yard IM, and is the 4th-best 100 yard backstroker in the history of the state’s registered swimmers at any age.

Hinkle’s best yards times:

  • 50 free – 23.91
  • 100 free – 52.00
  • 50 back – 24.76
  • 100 back – 52.97
  • 200 back – 1:56.60
  • 100 fly – 54.75
  • 200 IM – 2:03.34

Showing what an effect that scholarships can have on a program, the Duke women have put together two of the best recruiting classes in program history over the last two years. This year, that includes Jr. Pan Pacs medalist Lexy Aitchison, the versatile Maddie Hessdistance swimmer Brittany Kahn, and three-time YMCA National Champion Alyssa Arwood.

When combined with a freshman class that includes swimmers like Leah Goldman, Isabella Paez, and Maria Sheridan, Duke is building a nucleus that could start contending for top 5 finishes at ACC’s as soon as 2016. The Duke women haven’t finished higher than 6th since 1981 – where they were 5th out of just 6 teams.

Hinkle should contribute, at a bare-minimum, two A-final finishes at ACC’s in the 100 and 200 backstrokes as a freshman. In the ACC (with a C-Final scoring system), that will score her in the neighborhood of 50 ACC points, and in total this freshman class already should put up in the neighborhood of 200 individual points. That’s as compared to just 354 individual points scored by the entire Duke team at that meet last year.

She trains under Olga Splichanova, a former University of Minnesota All-American and two-time Olympian backstroker for the Czech Republic.

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ALA
9 years ago

Congrats Mickayla from your MN swim family. Good luck to you as always!

SUNY cal
9 years ago

Where did Hannah House go??

Peter Davis
Reply to  SUNY cal
9 years ago

Hanna House is still located on Stanford Campus(on Frenchmans I think), as it has been for around 80 years.
Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, it is one very cool piece of architecture. The house has no right angles in its floor plan; it relies on hexagonal shapes instead. This was an odd choice by Wright, to add what amounted to a plus model to his simpler, broader Usonian vision – he dubbed this one ‘Hexagonal Usonia.’ Through this vision, Wright attempted to convey the ideals of Thoreau’s Walden(big hit early 20th century): individualism, observing of nature, and expansion of knowledge.
He liked his own ideas(don’t we all) so much that many of his future works, like Guggenheim NY,… Read more »

Jesse
9 years ago

Hannah House is no longer on the team

pkdds
Reply to  Jesse
9 years ago

Wow, after all that commotion and college switching, where is Hanna now? Such a great potential

BlueDevilfan1
9 years ago

Congrats to Mikayla and Duke for another great recruit. The article forgot to mention the No 13 recruit Madeline Hess committed there as well. What a Class!!!!! Kudos to Coach Dan and Coach Jesse!!! Best of luck Mikayla

dontforget
9 years ago

don’t forget the other Duke commit, Maddie Hess!

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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