And the final huge piece of the epic women’s class of 2012 has finally ended the suspense today, when Jasmine Tosky chose to verbally commit to Dave Salo and the USC Trojans.
Tosky is an absolute stud, there’s no two-ways around it. She has USA Summer Nationals cuts in 12 of the 13 NCAA events (the mile is the only exception, but she hasn’t swum it in two years). She earned her way onto the 2011 USA Swimming World Championship team as a member of the 800 free relay. She broke the National High School Record in the 100 fly as only a junior with a 51.92 (which took half-a-second off of a 15-year old record held by Misty Hyman). Like I said, she’s a stud.
The big challenge is figuring out which events she’ll swim for the Trojans. One thing is clear – even though it’s not truly her specialty, as one of the top three sprinters in the class, she’ll be a massive part of USC’s sprint free relays, with bests of 22.7/48.9. USC badly needs to fill up those sprint relays, and Tosky should be at least #2 (behind Kasey Carlson) as a freshman.
They also really can use her sprint butterfly skills. Her 51.92 would have placed 5th at NCAA’s last year behind only four seniors. Her 200 butterfly of 1:54.63 would’ve been in an A-final as well. And her 1:44.1 200 free.
Her 1:54.8 in the 200 IM would’ve put her 3rd behind only all-world swimmer (and current USC Trojan – though she’ll be graduated by the time Tosky arrives) Katinka Hosszu and Maya DiRado.
I’d venture a guess that the only A-finals she wouldn’t be a lock for as a freshman would be the 100 breaststroke and the 1650 free, and even in those races, I wouldn’t bet a nickel against her.
We won’t know until it happens which events she’ll pick, and there’s a good chance that it will be different events every year. The 200 IM has to be on her list as a freshman for day 1, as will probably be the 200 fly on day 3 of the NCAA schedule. Day 2 will be the toss-up between the 200 free and 100 fly, though she’ll undoubtedly be training both. 100 fly seems like a more likely event for her to win a National Championship in as a freshman, so I’d push my lots onto that square.
This is the third top-20-type of recruit for Dave Salo in this class, along with Kendyl Stewart (a 52 100 butterflier herself) and Henriette Stenkvist, USC is going to rebuild (after big graduations) much sooner than later. Take those three, and add in Carlson on the breaststroke, and you’ve got close to a top-3 medley relay already.
Tosky chose USC over her hometown Stanford, which makes the commitment a bit of an upset for the Trojans. Tosky swims for both Palo Alto-Stanford Aquatics and Palo Alto High School, with Palo Alto being the home of Stanford.
Agree Shinjii!
Those who don’t go to Stanford..because they can’t get in or they go to other school because of other reasons than education! NOT!!
@ bobo gig Princeton is generally considered one of the best (and frequently ranked the best) universities for an undergraduate education. Swimmers who go to universities like Princeton or Harvard (aka strong academics but relatively weak athletics) are putting academics clearly ahead of swimming, so I think Kropp’s transfer to USC is a complete commitment to swimming one year out from the 2012 Olympics. She has a very good chance of getting the second 200 breast spot.
Ok it’s not Yulia Efimova, but Yuliya Efimova. And to conclude about Jasmine Tosky, she has made a good choice.
And other breaking news : Andrea Kropp, one of the best hopes for the breaststroke in USA with Emma Schoetmmer and Breeja Larson, goes from Princeton to USC. And one more top breaststroker in the pocket of Dave Salo. I’m not a specialist of NCAA but why she was at Princeton? It’s not a big swimming team. I believe under Dave Salo there are Rebecca Soni, Jessica Hardy, Mike Alexandrov, Kasey Carlson, Yulia Efimova, Kosuke Kitajima and now Andrea Kropp. It’s absolutely incredible.
“It is hard to turn away a Stanford degree but Olympics vs Degree?????”
… or you can be like Julia and Elaine, and have both.
Assuming she keeps her head on straight, Jasmine will be fine wherever she is. Good pickup for SC.
I agree Chris!
@joeb: Smit went the afore-mentioned times at Pac-10s, then went slower at NCAA’s. The main difference between Leverenz and Smit is that one is very clearly a short course swimmer and one is much more of a long course swimmer, not so much of a suit issue. Also, if you’re looking at recruiting class results, USC isn’t a great example either. Despite a lot of star power, in terms of actual improvement, I’d say they performed below expectations, particularly last summer.
god she just screwed her future, only stanford grads go on to do anything and we all know Cal is the only school in the country that cares about academics and that flroida is the only team that ever trained hard… I mean SC is a good school, by the beach, in a great city with a million things to do, but what is she doing.. I mean Salo (2012 assistant Olympic Coach) coached the NCAA Swimmer of the year and Honda award winner last year with Hosszu who wasn’t as good as tosky coming out of high school and SC took third (ahead of said stanford) in a great team race that was up for grabs until the last… Read more »