Auburn Men, Women Lock Up NCAA Invites Ahead of SEC Championships

2022 Auburn Invitational

• February 4-5, 2021
• James E. Martin Aquatic Center, Auburn, Alabama
• Short Course Yards (25 yards), Timed FInals
• Day 1 results

A year ago, the Auburn Tigers sent two individual men to the 2021 NCAA Championships, who scored no points, and no relays.

But first year head coach Ryan Wochomurka is sharing the very large ship in a hurry on The Plains, and on Friday, the Tigers locked in a men’s relay qualification for the 2022 championships, which is a significant turnaround from last season.

The Auburn relay of Nate Stoffle, Aidan Stoffle, Logan Tirheimer, and Matthew Yish combined for a 1:16.82 in the 200 yard free relay.

While a touchpad error means that we don’t know the middle two splits of the relay, it appears that Nate Stoffle opened in 19.67, Aidan Stoffle and Tirheimer combined for a 38.14 on the middle two legs, and Yish anchored in 19.01.

Last year, Auburn’s season-best in the 200 free relay was 1:18.55, which ranked them 8th among 10 SEC teams. Their time from Friday ranks them 2nd behind only the 9-time defending conference champion Florida Gators.

Wochomurka was a member of the Auburn team in the 2000s, when the program was built around a dominant core of sprinters. His hiring brought with it not only the pressure to rebuild the program as a whole, but especially to rebuild the sprint group, and early returns are a positive sign.

By comparison, three of those four swimmers (Yish, Tirheimer, and Aidan Stoffle) were on the team’s best 200 free relay last year, combining with the freshman Nate Stoffle now for a much faster result.

The Tigers already had an “A” standard in the 200 medley relay from the mid-season invite, but previously did not even have a “B” standard in the 200 free relay. Because of their “A” standards, they’re now able to enter at NCAAs all relays where they have at least “B” standards (Provisional Standards). That means they are now eligible to swim four of five relays, with the exception being the 800 free relay.

Auburn opened the evening with this time trial swim, and they swam a different foursome in the scored portion of the event, and they still managed to beat Florida State, showing off some depth.

The meet included contingents from Alabama, Florida, Florida State, and Emory with different levels of participation.

Florida State Women

The women’s 200 medley relay of Florida State likewise locked up an NCAA Championship invite with a Qualifying Standard time of 1:36.37 on Friday. That sneaks under the standard of 1:36.40. They now sit .01 seconds behind Louisville as the 4th-best relay in the conference so far this season.

The team of Tania Quaglieri, Nina Kucheran, Jenny Halden, and Rebecca Moynihan knocked .63 seconds off their previous season-best time, which happened to be last weekend against Tampa. They were just 1:37.43 at their mid-season Invite.

The Seminoles have been as hard-hit as anybody by COVID and flu cancellations this season, but they’re now locked in to a spot at NCAAs. So far, they don’t have any other Provisional Standards, but they’re likely to claim at least one more relay spot before the NCAA qualifying deadline.

Other Day 1 Highlights (Men & Women):

• The Florida State women swam a season-best time in the 200 free relay of 1:29.90. While they still rank 5th in the ACC this season, the Seminoles may have found a spark from their mid-season invite. Rebecca Moynihan and Maddie McDonald (22.07 anchor) were both also on the mid-season relay, but the team subbed in Jenny Halden (22.39) and Aryanna Fernandes (22.80) on Friday and still managed to drop a tenth. This leaves the Seminoles with a lot of options toward SECs: freshman Gloria Muzito split 22.80 on their B relay, and senior Hannah Womer split 22.94.
• Auburn’s Mikel Gadgaard, who was 20th at NCAAs last year in the 500 free, won the men’s 500 free in 4:16.30. Gadgaard still hasn’t locked in an NCAA qualification yet for this season, and will try to avoid having to use a Last Chance meet to do so like he did last year. He later won the 200 free in 1:34.12. That 200 free now ranks him 6th in school history.
• Auburn sophomore Hannah Ownbey took half-a-second off her season best in the 200 IM with a 1:56.87. That’s only a tenth slower than her season-best from last year’s SEC Championship meet, where she placed 7th, and should lock up her NCAA invite. Auburn sophomores went 1-2-3 in the race. Meghan Lee, who is more of a 400 IM specialist, smoked her lifetime best with a 1:57.59 for 2nd place. Her previous best of 1:59.9 was done at last year’s SEC Championships, where she finished 28th. Margaret Gholston was 3rd in 1:59.85, which is also a new personal best.
• Lee wasn’t done yet: she swam 1:53.00 in the 200 backstroke in a time trial, which cuts 1.99 seconds off her previous lifetime best. That ranks her 12th in the NCAA this season, and is comfortably inside of the time it took to qualify for last year’s NCAA Championship meet. She also split 24.32 on an Auburn 200 medley relay leadoff.
• Alabama freshman Ben Hines swam 19.71 to win the 50 free ahead of three of the members of Auburn’s aforementioned 200 free relay. That’s the first time that he’s been under 20 seconds.
• Russian swimmer Anastasia Makarova, a mid-season addition for Auburn, swam 59.98 in the 100 breaststroke. That makes her the first Auburn woman under 1 minute in the 100 breaststroke since the 2017-2018 season (Breanna Roman). Auburn’s next-best breaststroker, Carly Cummings, has a season-best of 1:00.90, so Makarova’s addition is significant for the Tigers.
• As Florida looks to shore up their women’s relays after losing some big swimmers to medical retirements and other unexplained absences, Nikki Miller stepped up and swam a best time of 49.25 in the 100 yard free. Primarily a distance freestyler, that is a lifetime best for her by almost two seconds. She wasn’t on the team’s mid-season 400 free relay, but this flat-start time is faster than one of the legs of that relay was on a rolling start in November.
• Auburn freshman Avery Bargeron swam a lifetime best of 52.43 in the 100 fly. That gets her close to where the NCAA qualifying standard has been in recent years, though current projections have it on the wrong side of the bubble. Her previous best was a 53.17 from Auburn’s mid-season invite, and in total she’s dropped about 7-tenths of a second from her high school best time so far.
• Mykenzie Leehy won the 200 free in a season-best time of 1:45.20, ahead of Miller’s 1:46.00. Leehy was the AAC Champion in the 200 free for Houston last season, and is one of the swimmers who followed Wochomurka to Auburn.
• Florida freshman Raphael Rached Windmuller took four-tenths off his best time in the 100 breaststroke with a 53.35.
• After swimming as part of the 200 free relay, freshman Nate Stoffle led off Auburn’s 400 medley relay in 45.93, which now ranks him 8th all-time in Auburn school hisotry.