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Ben Eckerson from Pennington, New Jersey has announced that he will be joining the Virginia Tech Hokies as a member of their class of 2025. Eckerson was a 2019 USA Swimming Scholastic All-American.
A backstroke specialist, Eckerson has seen rapid improvement in both his 100 and 200 races over the last season. Last December, while swimming at the Winter Junior Nationals-East, he swam a 48.78 in prelims. This time marked a best time by over a second in the event, as well as being good enough to qualify him for the B-final. His best time before that race had been a 49.92 from last March. His best time in the 200 back is from last March where he swam to a best time of 1:51.66, besting his old best time by nearly two seconds.
Top SCY Times:
- 50 free – 21.00
- 100 free – 47.42
- 100 back – 48.78
- 200 back – 1:51.66
Virginia Tech just finished their second season under new head coach Sergio Lopez. He guided the Hokie men to an 80-point improvement at the 2020 ACC Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships, narrowing the gap between them and this year’s third-place team Louisville.
It took a 47.93/1:46.33 to qualify for the scoring C-final at the 2020 ACC Championships, meaning Eckerson will need to improve some to provide immediate scoring as a freshman.
The Hokies had a strong underclassmen group this year, as over half of their total points were scored by the freshman and sophomore classes. The freshman backstroke group was led by Forest Webb, who was a B-finalist in both backstroke races.
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The hand gestures are dumb
We are ruining it for this young man. This should be place to celebrate his achievements and say few nice words about him if you know him. Congrats, Ben – that is some fast 100 back.
Congratulations Ben from your Pennington Swimming family! VT is getting a fantastic swimmer!
2021 class will be first recruiting class since Josh Huger left the program for Tennessee. It will be interesting to see if the current staff can get it done recruiting to Blacksburg, VA
i heard that Ben is becoming a runner
Big fax
Why all of the anti Sergio comments?
People hate success and are jealous of it. I doubt most of these people have ever met him and just see his goofy personality
Congratulations.
Surprised that Virginia Texh has continued to do what they have always done. I expected a improvement such as UNC has had in only one year.
…like what they’ve always done? Seems like they’ve been getting worse in the last two years actually. It’s a shame they can’t keep up with rest of the ACC, especially the schools around them.
Like what? 4th place finish and an 80 point increase from last season? 5 individual NCAA qualifiers with 2 relays? And not to mention we beat UVA at our home dual meet. Next time you try and diss a program make sure you have some evidence to back up your claim. #Gokies
VT has always done a pretty good job as maximizing their resources and potential in swimming. It’s a pretty strapped athletic department, in a beautiful but remote area of the country. Not exactly an easy place to build a swimming powerhouse, regardless of who you have coached in the past.
Sergio does not have nearly the work ethic to overcome these disadvantages in recruiting, where persistence tends to win over name power.
VT will improve as international recruiting continues to bring more talent to Blacksburg, but I wouldn’t expect athlete development to occur like some other ACC programs have seen in the recent past. (NCS, UVA, UNC) Those programs have young, hungry staffs.
Can you tell me what improvement you are speaking of? If Sergio brought a program from 10th to 7th in his first year you guys would be burning him at the stake. Virginia tech went from 6th to 4th in his first year and then closed the gap more between 3rd and 4th while they were projected to get 6th at the meet.
Have the women’s scoring not gone 736 – 477.5 – 469
We would talk about the women under a women’s commitment article. Right now we are talking about the men. Which by the way scored higher than we were projected at ACCs and our underclassmen scored the most, meaning we are bringing majority of those points back and more
What have the placements been?