Adams Leads SwimSquads After 101-Point Knoxville Showing

2019 PRO SWIM SERIES- KNOXVILLE

It was a fast start for Cammile Adams‘s team in USA Swimming’s SwimSquad Battles. The Adams Family outscored the other three teams by 10 points to take an early SwimSquads lead.

SCORING FORMAT

  • Prior to each meet, the captain will select 6 swimmers from their overall roster to score.
  • Each of the six athletes is designated for one specific category, and can score in up to two events from that category. The categories are:
    • Free (50 through 1500)
    • Back (50 through 200)
    • Breast (50 through 200)
    • Fly (50 through 200)
    • IM (200 and 400, not the mystery order 200 IM)
    • Flex (any two races)
  • An athlete must make the top 8 to score points:
    • 1st: 10
    • 2nd: 8
    • 3rd: 7
    • 4th: 5
    • 5th: 4
    • 6th: 3
    • 7th: 2
    • 8th: 1

Knoxville Scoring

In our pre-meet projection, we noted that Adams moved from perhaps the lowest post-draft stock to having the best starting lineup in Knoxville, and that held true. She scored 101 points, with DiRado running second after a strong Knoxville effort:

Knoxville
Adams Family 101
DiRadSquad 91
Jaeg-Train 88
Beisel Bunch 71

Here’s a look at the team-by-team scoring:

Adams Family

Adams Family 101
Starter Points
Free Margo Geer 50/100 FR 16
Back Olivia Smoliga 50/100 BK 18
Breast Micah Sumrall 100/200 BR 16
Fly Kelsi Dahlia 50/100 FL 17
IM Josh Prenot 200/400 IM 17
Flex Michael Andrew 50 FR / 50 BR 17

DiRadSquad

DiRadSquad 91
Starter Events Points
Free Simone Manuel 50/100 FR 20
Back Ryan Murphy 100/200 BK 20
Breast Nic Fink 50/200 BR 18
Fly Gianluca Urlando 100/200 FL 14
IM Chase Kalisz 200 IM 10
Flex Phoebe Bacon 50/100 BK 9

Jaeg-Train

Jaeg-Train 88
Starter Points
Free Katie Ledecky 400/1500 FR 20
Back Bryce Mefford 100/200 BK 14
Breast Molly Hannis 50/100 BR 14
Fly Tom Shields 50/100 FL 6
IM Melanie Margalis 200/400 IM 17
Flex Andrew Wilson 100/200 BR 17

Beisel Bunch

Beisel Bunch 71
Starter Points
Free Michael Chadwick 50/100 FR 18
Back Kathleen Baker 50/100 BK 8
Breast Kevin Cordes 100/200 BR 5
Fly Kendyl Stewart 50/100 FL 13
IM Jay Litherland 200/400 IM 9
Flex Hali Flickinger 200 FL / 400 IM 18

Adams had no 20-point starters, but there were only three 20-point swimmers in the entire field. Adams’ team was deep, though, each earning at least 16 points – that means every one of her swimmers averaged two second-place finishes or better.

DiRado had two of the three 20-point swimmers in the field, and would have had three if Chase Kalisz had swum the 400 IM. That makes us stand by our post-draft analysis that the DiRadSquad is the team to beat across the series as a whole. Those 20-pointers (Ryan Murphy and Simone Manuel) made up for relatively weak points performances from Kalisz in the IM slot and DiRado’s flex play.

Jaeger got the other 20 from Katie Ledecky (shocker, we know). But he only scraped out 6 butterfly points thanks to an 8th-place finish from Tom Shields in the 50 fly. That may have been partially caused by the meet’s lineup, which put the 50 fly in the same session as the 200 fly, where Shields was 6th.

Beisel brings up the rear early in the series, mostly due to a big miss on Kevin Cordes‘ 200 breast. We had projected Cordes as a starter in the 50 and 100 breast, where he scored 13 points. But Beisel started him in the 100 and 200, perhaps looking towards a weaker 200 field. Cordes scratched the event and only wound up with 5 total points. Hali Flickinger and Michael Chadwick each won races, but an eighth-place finish from Kathleen Baker in the 100 back doomed the backstroke spot to just eight points. Hard to fault Beisel for that, as you can’t exactly leave the world record-holder on your bench.

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About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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