Claire Tuggle Picks Up Her First USC Win As Trojan Women Beat #3 Louisville at SMU Classic

2023 SMU CLASSIC

• October 6-7, 2023
• Robson & Lindley Aquatics Center, SMU, Dallas, Texas
• Short Course Yards (25 yards)
• Results on Meet Mobile: “2023 SMU Classic”
• Full Results PDF
• Day 1 Recap

The USC women got more positive signals on day 2 of the SMU Classic, while Louisville’s Gabi Albiero had another early-season electric swim in winning the 100 free, while on the men’s side, the Auburn sprint crew led the day – though Louisville still held on for a narrow victory.

In this uniquely-formatted meet, 6 men’s teams and 6 women’s teams bring limited rosters, with each program getting 1 relay and 2 individual entries per event. The individual races are swum as an A flight and a B flight, with points awarded for finish within each heat. It is renowned for producing early-season top times.

Women’s Teams (and Final Scores):

1. #11 USC – 345
2. #3 Louisville – 334
3. #25 Auburn – 289
4. Missouri – 242
5. SMU – 217
6. #19 Miami – 205

Men’s Teams (and Final Scores):

1. #16 Louisville – 313
2. #13 Auburn – 312
3. #19 USC – 305
4. #6 Texas – 270
5. #20 Missouri – 234
6. SMU – 227

Women’s Recap

After a breakout swim in the 200 free on Day 1 (1:43.53), USC freshman Minna Abraham picked up a 2nd win on day 2 of the SMU Classic, winning the 200 IM in 1:57.51.

The next-best performer is one of the keys to USC’s season: sophomore transfer Claire Tuggle. She won the B heat in 1:58.76, which is a new personal best in a race she hasn’t yet swum in college. Her previous best time was a 1:59.62 in 2019, when she was only 14, so the potential was always there – she’s just been more focused on the freestyle races in the years since.

Case-in-point: a 4:42.81 in the 500 free on Saturday, the top time of the field by over five seconds. That’s the 2nd-best time in the NCAA so far this season.

Tuggle spent her freshman season at the University of Virginia, where she broke through a plateau, qualifying for the NCAA Championships but ultimately being left off the roster, saying “I just have some personal things going on right now and the added stress and pressure of NCAAs was not in my best interest or the team’s.”

Those were two of four wins for USC on the 2nd day of the meet in nine races.

Kaitlyn Dobler, the favorite or at least co-favorite in the NCAA in the 100 breast, won the 200 breast on Sunday in 2:08.59. Like her 100 on Friday, that swim was better than the 2:09.14 she swam in the NCAA finals last year for 15th place.

The Trojans opened the day with a 1:37.02 in the 200 medley relay, which matched their 400 medley relay win on day 1 (which was an NCAA qualifying ‘A’ cut).

The relay of Justina Kozan (25.22), Kaitlyn Dobler (26.69), Anicka Delgado (23.34), and Vasilissa Buinaia (21.77) combined for a time that was just 1.5 seconds short of what they swam at NCAAs last year. She was a 2:05.66 at Pac-12s last year, though, so that remains the ultimate target.

Louisville was 2nd in the race in 1:37.29, with their powerful back-end of Christiana Regenauer splitting 23.29 on the fly leg and Gabi Albiero splitting 21.15 on the free leg.

While the Cardinals, the unanimous #3 team in the NCAA this season, were beat-out in team scoring by USC, they did grab a trio of final-day wins that will serve as beacons for the rest of their season.

That began with Paige Hetrick in the 200 backstroke, winning in 1:54.13. That swim is already almost as fast as she was at last year’s mid-season invite, and a second-and-a-half faster than she was at this meet last year. She was 10th at NCAAs in the event in 2023.

Auburn’s pair had positive swims in this race too. Meghan Lee, 20th at NCAAs last year, was 2nd behind Hetrick in 1:56.39, while Kensley Merritt continued her breakthrough meet with a 1:55.73. That swim comes after a personal best in the 100 on Saturday. The Auburn backstroke group is firing on all cylinders early in the season.

The aforementioned Albiero caught fire in the women’s 100 free, touching in 47.67 to win the race. That added to earlier wins in the 50 free (21.75) and 100 fly (51.16).

Albiero’s swim ranks her at the top of the NCAA so far this season. The top five bona fide NCAA times in the 100 free came in this race, including USC’s Buinaia. The Russian-born USC freshman will race for the Trojans for just one season as a graduate student. Her long course best time in the 100 free in 55.14.

Albiero then split 21.94 on the opening leg of the 200 free relay to give the Cardinals a full-second lead. Louisville front-stacked their relay with Albiero and Regenauer (21.87), and USC nearly ran them down with Buinaia (21.91) and Abraham (21.88). Ultimately, though, Louisville won in 1:29.12, with USC 2nd in 1:29.32.

The lone winners from outside of the top two teams both came from the Missouri Tigers. Kayla Wilson won the women’s 3-meter diving with a score of 269.00, and Taylor Williams won the 200 fly in 1:56.65.

That’s a massive breakthrough for Williams, whose previous best time in this event was a 1:58.17 at last year’s Missouri Invitational. Williams swam the butterfly leg of Missouri’s medley relays at last year’s NCAA Championships, but was primarily focused on sprinting (she was just 2:01.75 in the 200 fly at SECs).

But even with no long course swims of the 200 fly over the summer, Williams has leveled up in the event.

While USC’s Kozan almost ran her down in the last 50, Williams’ first 150 yards were near-perfection.

That time would put Williams in the B Final of SECs if repeated in the spring.

Men’s Recap

The men’s team title came down to the final race of the meet between Louisville and Auburn.

A good sprint crew for the Tigers gave them confidence in the win, but they needed USC or Missouri to upset Louisville for 2nd.

Ultimately, Auburn won that last race pretty easily in 1:18.56, breaking Texas A&M’s 2022 Meet Record in the event, but Louisville took 2nd place in 1:19.59 to secure the team title by 1 point.

Auburn was led by splits of 19.25 from Kalle Makinen and 19.28 from Benjamin Chateigner on the middle two legs of that race. Chateigner, a French-born freshman making his college debut this weekend, arrived at Auburn as more of a 100/200 guy, but that 50 split may alter his priorities going forward.

The Auburn men swept the relays on day 2 of the meet, also breaking a Meet Record in the opening 200 medley relay in 1:24.49. That relay of Nate Stoffle (21.23), Henry Bethel (23.73), Aidan Stoffle (20.41) and Makinen (19.12) combined to break the 2021 Michigan-set record of 1:24.91.

Aidan Stoffle‘s split was faster than brother Nate swam at NCAAs last year (Auburn was 9th) while Nate led off in a time almost as fast as older brother Aidan swam at NCAAs last year (21.04). The two have similar strengths, but early on that swap looks like it might be a positive move for the Tigers this year.

Aidan also won the 200 backstroke individually in 1:43.37, though Nate swam the B heat in a faster winning time of 1:42.79.

USC freshman Krzysztof Chmielewski continued an impressive debut meet for the Trojans, adding two more individual wins to his victory in the 100 fly on Friday.

He started Saturday with a win in the 500 free in 4:15.18, an early NCAA leader and seven seconds better than anyone at USC swam last season.

Then in his specialty, the 200 fly, he won in 1:41.60 to break Nic Albiero’s Pool Record from 2021. That’s the 2nd-fastest time in USC program history and half-a-second off Alexei Sancov’s program record of 1:41.04.

Chmielewski is the 2023 World Championships silver medalist in that race in long course for Poland.

His twin brother Michael Chmielewski won the B heat in the 2nd-fastest time of the day, 1:43.43.

USC was low-key in the team battle as well, though it was a longshot to win by the final race. While they lacked the depth to take the overall title, they did pick up a lot of wins in the last day of competition.

Besides Krzyzstof Chmielewski’s pair, they also got a win in the 100 free from Artem Selin, where he swam 43.04. That’s a new personal best time for him, beating the matching 43.86s that he swam both mid-season and at Pac-12s last season.

It’s even faster than the 43.42 that he anchored USC’s 400 medley relay with on Friday.

Louisville’s Matias Santiso had the best time in the B-heat and the 2nd-best time overall in 43.20. The Argentine freshman will provide a much-needed boost to Louisville’s sprint group if he can continue that success.

The Texas men continued to rely heavily on freshmen on the last day of competition. Nate Germonprez gave the Longhorns their only swimming day 2 win by posting 1:45.27 in the 200 IM.

Fellow freshman Will Modglin’s win and Meet Record in the 100 backstroke on Friday was the only other Longhorn swimming win of the day, though sophomore All-American diver Nicholas Harris won the 3-meter to complete a sweep on the springboards.

Louisville grabbed a final day win from Denis Petrashov in the 200 breaststroke, where he swam 1:55.88. Expected to be one of the top breaststrokers in the NCAA this season, that paired with his win and Pool Record in the 100 breast from Friday. That time is 1.3 seconds better than he was at this meet last year.

USC’s Chris O’Grady was 2nd in 1:56.29.