Women’s Swimmer of the Week-TIE-Iullia Kuzhill (Kansas) and Laura Sogar (Texas)
Men’s Swimmer of the Week-Dax Hill (Texas)
No. 17 Texas A&M Swings Rivalry in Their Favor
After two 1-point decisions the past two years, including a loss in Dallas last season, the Texas A&M men put some serious hurt on the Mustangs. The final score was 136-98 in favor of the Aggies even without their best diver, best sprint butterflier, and after exhibitioning the last two events.
A&M’s times weren’t as explosive as some of the other numbers we’ve seen the past few weeks, but Coach Jay Holmes doesn’t generally ascribe to the prevalent belief necessitating a mid-season taper meet. In addition to that, one of the more extreme dryland routines in the country tends to cause their mid-season slowest times to be much slower than other teams of similar talents and abilities.
Considering that, A&M put up some very good times. Balazs Makany won the 100 free in a team-best mark of 44.54. Freshman Paul-Marc Schweitzer notched a 1:51.00 in the men’s 200 back, which is in the top 5 times in the Big 12 this season.
SMU’s performance was also partially mitigated by the fact that they didn’t appear to have rested for this meet as much as they have in years past. Still, sophomore sprinter Mindaugas Sadauskas won the 50 free in 20.53, which is a season best time for the Lithuanian and easily the best time in Conference USA this year. He also took second in the 100 in 44.61: just behind Makany. Besides his individual performances, Sadauskas also had the fastest split of anybody in the meet in the 400 free relay (44.24).
The meet had a scary moment on the 3-meter as Aggie diver Cam McLean slipped on the approach of his second dive, hit his back on the board, and tumbled into the pool. The spill was especially scary given that McLean missed most of last season with a shoulder injury, and he appeared in real-time to hit his shoulder. McLean bounced up out of the water immediately, finished his dives, and recovered from the failed dive well enough to still take third place in the event.
His toughness should come as no surprise, given his background as a short track speed skater. For those unfamiliar with the sport, it is way more prone to falls and wipeouts than regular speedskating, and McLean was a Canadian Junior National silver medalist at the age of 8.
No. 8 A&M Women Break 9 Pool Records Against Rice
The A&M women put up a similarly impressive show as their male counterparts against another in-state squad: the Rice Owls. The Aggies swam off-events, but still managed to break 9 pool records at the outdoor Rice Aquatics Center that is just over a year old.The outdoor atmosphere was unusually fun for a college dual-meet, partially due to the roars from the crowd at the football stadium next door, where over 41,000 fans gathered to watch a highschool regional final football game (yeah, everything you hear about Texas HS football is true). Quite comically, on more than one occasion, cheers for the football game coincided with announcements of lane assignments or finishes of close races.One Aggie who did swim at least one “on” event was sprinter Maria Sommer, who won the 100 free in a pool record of 50.84. She also led off the sprint free relay in 23.25, and won the 100 back in 57.45, which are also school records. The Aggie women are two weeks off of their mid-season taper, and thus are likely ramping up their practice yardage again prior to Holiday training, so the sprint free times are a very good sign for her.
The Rice women also had an outstanding meet by their standards. They set several season-best times, and won 4 events, which is no small feat against a top 10 team. Coach Seth Huston has shown a great ability to leverage Rice’s stellar academic reputation to reach outside of the state, where teams like A&M and Texas have a stranglehold on recruiting. This was largely evident in Rice’s 1-2 finish in the 200 free from freshman Chelsea Fong (1:51.88) and sophomore Stephanie Wei, respectively, who both hail from California.
Both Aggie coaches (men’s and women’s) echoed a common sentiment after their respective teams victories: that at this point in the season, they aren’t even that worried about the times that showed up on the scoreboard. Right now, they’re focused on feel and racing, which is a great approach and emphasis to these post-rest meet swims.
Other Big 12 News….
Both the Texas Men and Texas Women won their annual Texas Hall-of-Fame Invite in Austin over very good competition like Arizona and Wisconsin. Texas sophomore Laura Sogar set the school record in the 200 breaststroke for the third time this season, bringing the mark down to 2:07.82…Kansas’ Iullia Kuzhill is a name to watch for at NCAA’s. At the Georgia Bulldog Invitational, she won the 200 back (1:54.43) and took second in the 100 back (53.05): both of which are top 8 times in the country. Kansas placed 5th overall…The Missouri Men and Women won their home invitational. Dominique Brouchard set meet records in both backstroke races, and for the men Mark Conroy had a swift mark of 54.6 in the 100 breaststroke…The Nebraska women took third at the same meet behind Kansas and Boise St…Iowa St. was the only idle Big 12 team on the weekend…
Texas Dax Hill is someone to watch.
Oh geeeeez! Enough with “the most intense dryland training in the history of the universe” crap. Can you do an Aggie writeup WITHOUT mentioning this?
Are you just parroting what you heard from the Aggie coaches, or are there other sources that back up this repetitive claim? Exactly what other programs are you comparing A&M’s to? Is their dry-land program more intensive than Texas’s? Florida’s? Cal’s? Stanford’s? Or are we talking about comparisons to other second-tier programs?