Dave Salo.
Dave Salo is on a roll.
Today, he picked up another major verbal commitment, this one coming on the women’s side, as Maggie D’Innocenzo has pledged her college years to the USC Trojans.
The swimmer out of Crimson Aquatics in Massachusetts is yet another sibling of one of the stars of the Texas men who is in this high school class of 2013: her older brother Nick D’Innocenzo is a senior for the Longhorns this season, was 8th at NCAA’s last year in the 400 IM, which puts her in company with Jordan Surhoff, younger sister of Austin who committed to Texas, and Kyle Darmody, younger brother of Kip, who didn’t.
Like her older brother, Maggie should excel in the IM’s – she’s got bests of 2:02.0 in the 200, and 4:15.2 in the 400 in yards (and in long course 2:17 and 4:49 – indicating she’s got a drop coming in yards). Unlike her brother, though, it’s not the breaststrokes that are the younger D’Innocenzo’s strengths.
Instead, she tends toward the 200 backstroker and 200 butterflier, which sets her swimming apart from her brother’s. Maggie much more of a front-half IM’er than Nick is, highlighted by her best times in the individual strokes: in the 200 back, she’s been 1:57.65, and in the 200 fly, she’s been 1:59.16; meanwhile her 200 breast is only a 2:20. With any kind of improvements as a freshman, she could very well place in the top-16 in at least two events at the Pac-12 Championships, at least.
D’Innocenzo will likely find herself training in a group with 2013 freshman Jasmine Tosky, as the pair are very similarly balanced across the events. She will join a USC class that already includes names like Chelsea Chenault, Jamie Christy, Lexie Malazdrewicz, Riley Hayward, and Blair Carnes; and that’s just on the women’s side. Despite missing out on the two really-big names, Missy Franklin and Lia Neal, Salo has taken that money and spread it around to quite an extensive and versatile class.
