For those unfamiliar with swimming terminology, the concept of “Ups” and “Downs” is a good way to track which teams performed best at prelims. In prelims, swimmers qualify for one of two finals heats: the top 8 finishers make the A final and places 9 through 16, the B final. In finals, swimmers are locked into their respective final, meaning a swimmer in the B heat (spots 9-16) can only place as high as 9th or as low as 16th, even if they put up the fastest or slowest time of any heat in the final.
With that in mind, we’ll be tracking “Ups” and “Downs” after each prelims session. “Up” refers to swimmers in the A final, and “Down” to swimmers in the B final.
Drury stepped up in a big way on Friday morning, securing 8 A-final and 5 B-final spots for tonight. With a 21-point improvement over their expected Friday score, the Panthers may have pushed Indy out of the way in the team race. Although with three sessions left, much can transpire, Drury looks to have locked into second place in the team standings.
Indy, for their part, nabbed 6 A-finals and 6 B-finals. Three of those top-8 finishes this morning came in 3-meter diving, where the Greyhounds and Colorado Mesa made up six of the top-8 divers. Queens continued to assure themselves a scorer in every swimming event; they even did better than expected in the 500 free.
Florida Southern made 4 A finals, while Findlay and Oklahoma Christian nabbed two top-8 slots apiece.
Anne Lepesant is the mother of four daughters, all of whom swam in college. With an undergraduate degree from Princeton (where she was an all-Ivy tennis player) and an MBA from INSEAD, she worked for many years in the financial industry, both in France and the U.S. Anne is currently …