College Recruits Dominate 400 IM at Phoenix Sectionals Day 2

2018 FOUR CORNERS SPEEDO SECTIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

• Thursday-Sunday, March 22nd-25th
• Phoenix Country Day School Dady Aquatic Center, Phoenix, AZ
• Short Course Yards (SCY)
• Psych Sheet
• Live Results

On the 2nd day of competition at the Four Corners Sectional, Breeja Larson continued to look pretty good. Tonight only featured 2 individual events, the 200 free and 400 IM.

Olympic Gold Medalist Breeja Larson won the women’s 200 free by over 1.5 seconds, posting a 1:47.37. That time was a personal best for Larson, coming in well under her previous best of 1:49.19, which she swam almost exactly a year ago. Larson was out stunningly fast, flipping at the 100 in 50.80, not far at all off her best time 49.30 from yesterday. She was back in 56.57, which isn’t that great of a 2nd 100 split, but it was still a fantastic race for her overall. Houston recruit Haley Benjamin came in 2nd with a 1:48.92, marking a gigantic drop from her previous best time of 1:50.75 from prelims (1:51.45 best time before this meet).

Thomaz Martins won the men’s 200 free, posting a 1:38.78 to win over Michael Niezgodzki (1:39.89). Martins’ time came in well off his lifetime best of 1:35.34, which he swam at last year’s PAC-12 Championships.

Haley Benjamin came back after coming in 2nd with a massive time drop in the 200 free to win the 400 IM in yet another huge best time. Benjamin posted a 4:16.36 after running down Sydney Carlson (4:17.09) on the free leg to get to the wall first. Benjamin was slightly behind Carlson at the 200 mark, 2:04.16 to 2:03.71, then used a strong back half of 2:12.2, fueled by a 57.78 free split. Benjamin’s best time coming into the meet was 4:22.91, then she went 4:18.26 in prelims, and dropped it down to 4:16.36 in finals. That marks a 6.55 second drop over the course of the day.

ASU recruit Jarod Arroyo won the men’s 400 IM by 8.5 seconds, posting a 3:51.02 to drop 3 seconds from his previous best of 3:54.05, set just a few weeks ago. Arroyo posted good splits all around, coming in at 52.01, 58.61, 1:05.64, and 54.76 respectively.