Tuesday Night at the Conference Meets: Kentucky Turns a HUGE Corner (And Other Key Swims)

You saw Louisville beat Virginia in the women’s 200 medley relay. You saw the Florida men swim the fastest 200 medley relay in history. But in the two fastest conference meets in the country…there is so much more to see beyond the winners.

Here’s a selection of Things You Might Have Missed on Tuesday night.

Kentucky Freshmen Look HOT on Day 1

The University of Kentucky, equipped with a batch of buzzy new assistant coaches this season, have a lot of momentum coming into SECs. A lot of that is via some big recruiting hits, but it’s fun to see that momentum also play out in the pool.

Last year, Kentucky had the worst 200 medley relay in the SEC. They finished 10th at SECs, beating only a DQ’ed Auburn team (that actually touched about three seconds ahead of them).

In truth, Kentucky’s men’s 200 medley relays have been bad for a while. In 2022, their SEC Championship Meet anchor was outsplit by Virginia women’s anchor Kate Douglass at the ACC Championships. During the tenure of their previous head coach, this was a distance team. For much of the start of Bret Lundgaard‘s tenure, the same has been true.

But those narratives were quieted on Tuesday with a 4th place finish in 1:21.80. The school record coming into this season was a 1:24.98. That’s a three second improvement in a single season.

And it’s a young relay too. The high notes were the freshman leadoff and anchor legs. Lysander Osman split 20.21 on the backstroke leg and Falemana Tuufui, who has been on a tear all season long, split 18.16 on the free leg.

The intermediate splits were good too. Sophomore Adomas Gatulis split 23.12 on breaststroke and sophomore Javier Lopez-Guillen split 20.31 on the fly leg.

Combined with a runner-up finish from Levi Sandidge in the 1650 free and a 9th place finish in the 800 free relay, the Wildcats sit in 5th after Tuesday’s day 2 (diving was on Monday), ahead of Georgia and Auburn and Alabama.

I don’t know if they’re going to stay there once we move into the meet of the individual events, but that’s an electric start for the Wildcats.

Quick Hits

• Josh Liendo‘s 17.58 anchor for Florida was hot. But LSU’s Jere Hribar split 17.59 to help the Tigers to a 3rd place finish. The earth is shifting in the SEC, and a lot of non-traditional powers are climbing toward the top of the rankings.
• The Texas women didn’t break any records with a 6:50.59 win in the 800 free relay at SECs, but freshman Nikolett Padar swam 1:41.36 leading them off. There is some international pressure on her to perform, and that time was about three-quarters of a second faster than what she swam mid season, setting up a good meet for her. Only Indiana’s Liberty Clark (1:41.27) has been faster this season among freshmen, and Padar is now the third-fastest freshman in the event this decade.
• Don’t look now – the Cal women, on a long rebuild road from the Teri McKeever saga, are showing sparks. A relay with 2 freshmen and 2 sophomores swam 1:33.29 for 4th place at ACCs behind a murderer’s row of Louisville, Virginia, and Stanford. That’s a new school record for the Golden Bears, who have had some really good medley relays in the past. All four legs have at least two years of eligibility remaining, and they bring in the best sprinter in the class of 2026 Rylee Erisman next fall.
• Speaking of Cal, breakout sophomore Mia West continued her big campaign by swimming fast legs on both Cal relays on Tuesday. She split 20.88 to anchor their 200 medley and returned for a 1:40.95 split on the 800 free relay later in the session (rolling start). That was the second-best split of the field behind only the 1:40.42 by Virginia’s Anna Moesch.
• The Pitt Panthers continue to show signs of improvement under head coach Chase Kreitler. They broke 5 school records on Tuesday in four swimming events. Julian Koch got the men’s 200 free on a leadoff leg (1:32.79), that relay got the record in 6:14.43, the women’s 800 free relay got a record in 7:00.42 (by almost three seconds), the men’s 200 medley got a school record in 1:22.57, and Claire Jansen got the women’s school record in the 50 back in 23.63. That’s a nice start to the meet for Pitt.