Fast Rising OT Qualifier Nick Milikich Commits to Notre Dame

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Nick Milikich, who swims for Nitro in the Austin, Texas area, recently tweeted his commitment to swim for the Fighting Irish:

I’m super excited to announce my commitment to swim for the University of Notre Dame! Go Irish! ???https://t.co/jc4RqMiW3Z

— Nick Milikich (@nickmilikich) October 9, 2015

Milikich has an insane improvement curve over the last year. In the summer of 2014, he was not even a winter juniors qualifier in the 200 IM (2:11.35) , but by summer 2015 he had qualified for the Olympic Trials in 2:04.93. He is strong in both IM races, with backstroke as his strongest individual stroke:

• 200 IM: 1:50.18
• 400 IM” 3:59.88, 4:30.42 in LCM
• 100 backstroke: 53.96, 58.12 in LCM
• 200 backstroke 1:51.93, 2:04.76 in LCM

While those times could suggest that Milikich is just much stronger in LCM, looking back over his progression that is not the case. Milikich had a monster long course season and is poised to make huge improvements over his SCY personal bests. He joins a team that is still trying to claw its way up since the move from the former Big East to the ACC. The Notre Dame were contenders in the Big East, but finished just 5th in the ACC last year. Milikich is a sneaky pickup for them that could pay huge dividends at the conference level.

Although none of his SCY times would have scored at last year’s championship, his summer suggests he could come in right away and be a three event scorer for the Fighting Irish. Crucially, the Irish graduated five out of seven IM scoring swims from last year’s ACC Championship so they could definitely use some new blood in those events.

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