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High school junior Kate Shanley has verbally committed to the University of Michigan. Shanley, who swims for the Foothills Swim Team in suburban Denver, will arrive at Michigan in the fall 0f 2021.
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Shanley won both the 200 and 500 yard freestyles in February at the Colorado 5A High School State Championship meet. That improves upon a year earlier as a sophomore where she was 2nd in both events.
Between those two meets, she cut about half-a-second off her time in the 200 free, but four in the 500 free as her distance freestyle times really took off during her junior season.
At the Winter Junior – West Championships, where most of her career best swims were done, she added a 16:24.16 in the 1650 free to her repertoire, which was a 17-second improvement from her time from a year prior. That placed her 3rd at those Winter Junior – West Championships. She made more modest gains of only two tenths in the 100 free.
Best Times in Yards:
- 50 free – 24.64
- 100 free – 51.67
- 200 free – 1:49.16
- 500 free – 4:49.76
- 1000 free – 10:05.54
- 1650 free – 16:24.16
In long course, Shanley is a long course Junior Nationals qualifier. Her long course best times were mostly done last summer (other than a 200 free time trial swim at Winter Juniors), and given her short course improvements, she was within striking distance (13 seconds) of an Olympic Trials cut in the 1500 free.
She joins a Michigan team that finished 2nd at last year’s Big Ten Championship meet, about 200 points behind their arch-rivals Ohio State. Michigan has a traditionally-strong distance group, and while it wasn’t as deep as it has been in the 2019-2020 season, the top end was still very good (which was the story of the Michigan team). Junior Sierra Schmidt was 2nd in the 1650 free (15:48.53) and freshman Kaitlyn Sims was 3rd in the 1650 free (15:49.83) at the Big Ten Championships. The same pairing finished 3rd and 4th in the 500 free.
Shanley’s best time already would have placed her 11th in the 1650 free. Even with just one finals event, that would have scored more points than 7 swimmers on Michigan’s Big Ten Championships team.
Shanley attends Chatfield High School in Littleton, Colorado.
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Welcome Kate! Go Blue!