In the year of the Canadian, another top-25’er from North of the Borderhas made her college commitment. Brooklynn Snodgrass out of the Cascade Swim Club near Calgary (think Rocky Mountains) will swim for the Indiana Hoosiers next fall. Collegeswimming.com ranks her as the #22 recruit in the class.
Snodgrass will follow in the footsteps of Canadians Brenna MacLean and Bronwyn Pasloski, who have been very successful already after one season in Bloomington.
She should come to Indiana as an elite backstroker already. Her Short Course Meters bests in the 100 and 200 are 59.6 and 2:08.4, respectively. Indiana has a very strong backstroke tradition, including most recently Kate Fasenko who was the 200 back National Champion in 2010, and on the men’s side Eric Ress, who placed 2nd at NCAA’s in both the 100 and 200 last year.
Converted, those times come out as 53-mid and a 1:55-low, respectively, both of which would already put her within a touch of scoring points at NCAA’s next year.
Snodgrass is also an excellent sprint freestyler, which will help bolster a very young, but very talented, Indiana sprint group. Her best sprint free times convert to 23.4 and 50.7 in yards.
The brings a wealth of international experience to campus, which makes her potential even more encouraging. She’s traveled to many of the Grand Prix meets, so the American experience is nothing new to her, and she competed at the Berlin World Cup stop last week. She made the final in the 200 backstroke (where Missy Franklin took the World Record).
This is Indiana’s 2nd top-40 signing, along with distance swimmer Taylor O’Brien. Coach Ray Looze and his staff can’t rest yet, though, if he wants to continue his streak of 3-straight Big Ten titles, that should become 4 in the spring. Indiana has a monster of a class graduating, including Allysa Vavra, Margaux Farrell, and Brittany Strumbel.
This continues my theory that there are certain countries that have established a huge repore with Canadian coaches and swimmers, and will continue to thrive off of their recruitment. Interestingly, most of the Canadians tend to stay in the western-half of the country rather than the west coast.
