Teri McKeever and Liz Pelton talk about a fabulous freshman year

Elizabeth Pelton’s American Record in the 200 Backstroke at the 2013 Women’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships (as reported by Braden Keith)

The Cal freshman class has been the star of this meet, and after her teammate Rachel Bootsma was the second-best 100 back in history on Friday, Liz Pelton crushed the NCAA, American, and U.S. Open Records in the 200 backstrokes on Friday night.

Her final time of 1:47.84 broke the old NCAA/U.S. Open Record set by Florida’s Gemma Spofforthin 2009 at NCAA’s with a 1:48.34; Spofforth is British by birth, so Pelton held the old American Record from this year’s Pac-12 Championships with a 1:48.39.

The comparative splits show that Pelton went out much faster than Spofforth did in her record-breaking swim at the 2009 SEC Championships. Whereas Spofforth actually negative-split her race, by a lot, Pelton went out very hard in 53.05. Spofforth’s impressive back-half was probably, in small part at least, a function of the suit that she was wearing. The polyurethane suits allowed swimmers to stay down for a long time at the end of their races.