After a run of 5 National Age Group Records on Saturday at the Tom Dolan Invitational, the stars shone again on the final night of competition from the University of Maryland pool.
The biggest swim of the night was the men’s open 200 backstroke where Jack Conger swam a 1:38.75 to cruise to victory (over another stud swimmer, Andrew Seliskar, who was 2nd in 1:46.93.
A week-and-a-half ago, that would have been a National Age Group Record by more than a second for the 18-year old. That is, of course, aside from the 1:38.1 that Ryan Murphy went at Winter Nationals last week.
Still, with this big time drop for Conger, the gap between him and Murphy, and any other 18-year-old in history, is now stretched to two seconds (Max Murphy, no relation, is the next fastest in the history of the age group at 1:40.53).
Conger would conclude his meet by leading off Rockville-Montgomery’s 400 free relay in a 43.39: his first time under 44 seconds. He teamed up with Barry Mangold, Matthew Colkert, and Alex Wu for a 3:02.99: the fastest relay ever swum in a Potomac Valley sanctioned meet.
In the girls’ 400 free relay, Katie Ledecky once again focused on her relay duties and helped lead the NCAP women to a 3:23.67. Ledecky anchored in 50.78, with Rosannah Petit (51.68), Janet Hu (48.60), and Andi Mack (52.61) missed another NAG Record, but broke the Potomac Valley Open Record.
The Central Bucks Swim Team’s Allie Szekely, even without any breaststroke races (her specialty), won three individual events in the girls’ 13-14 division.
That started with the 200 backstroke where her 1:57.19 (which ranks 14th all-time in the age group) broke the LSC Age Group Record in the race. Next came the 100 free, where Szekely won again in 51.73 (and actually had a teammate Hannah Zurmuhl, also 14, who was 2nd in a 51.78).
Szekely topped her meet off, as an individual, with a 1:59.14 victory in the 200 IM, marking the first time she’s gone under two minutes in the races. That owes mostly to a fantastic 34-second split on the breaststroke leg where she was about 4 seconds better than the rest of the field. 13-year old Lea Gwennap was 2nd in 2:06.54; that ranks her third among swimmers of the age nationwide this season.
Also in the 13-14 age group, NCAP’s Cassidy Bayer swam her first big yards meet after aging up; she last summer broke all of Dana Vollmer’s long course 11-12 butterfly records.
Showing no signs of stalled progression, she swam a 1:59.03 Potomac Valley record in the 200 fly for the victory. That cleared Felicia Lee’s 1:59.15 from 2006 as the fastest time this millenium by a 13-year old. It was also a personal best for her by almost five seconds.
Bayer will now put her head down and go after possibly the most iron-clad record on the books: Mary T. Meagher’s swims from 1979, really either in yards or meters. That record sits at 1:56.58; Bayer is already the 11th-fastest in the history of the age group, and has another 20 months to knock two-and-a-half seconds off her time and cross into the territory of the legendary.
Michael Jensen followed his big 200 free from Friday night with an impressive win on Sunday in the 100 free. There he swam an LSC age group record of 45.67 to win just half-a-second from the NAG Record. Jonathan Spires from SEVA was 2nd in 47.15 – a phenomenal time for a 14-year old in its own right that still highlights just how good Jensen’s swim was.
Jensen would later win the 200 IM in 1:55.87 (with Spires again 2nd in 1:57.45).
Asphalt Green’s Michael Domagala, who is best known as a 200 freestyler, swam a 1:47.96 in the 200 IM to just miss another top-10 all-time placement in the 15-16 age group in the event.
And finally, the biggest star of them all this meet, swimming personality and amateur MMA fighter Joe Pascale, growing frustrated with all of the story lines belonging to age groupers, swam a 44.33 in the 100 free to tip Domagala’s 44.65. That’s a new personal best for the best beard in PVS; he seems to really be hitting his peak at 29-years young.
What a meet! Fantastic to watch so many young talents in an age group meet!
Jack Conger is a real star in the making. And when he will be more powerful with many hours in the weight room he’ll swim crazy times.
When I see Katie Ledecky in the 1000 free and her times around 9.22, 9.25, I ask me how Katie Hoff has swum 9.10.77. It’s an absolutely incredible time and I think even Katie Ledecky fully tapered will struggle to break this record in the future. However, it’s a very good return for her after the olympic games with new PB in the 200 free, the 500 free, the 1000 free and the 1650 free in… Read more »
As an old swim fan, I went to the Tom Dolan meet the final day as a spectator this year for the first time. What a meet! Great swimming by Conger, Szekely, Reese, Bayer, Ledecky, and Hu. So neat to watch.
Well said Braden !!! New comers need to learn a few things before maybe posting they critics about this site !!! I support fankfully your owesome work . Hope everybody can understand it too .
Though we will not be able to create all of the content needed, we will ask the entire swimming community to assist in our vision. We will not turn down anyone that is willing to help contribute to the full coverage of swimming.
The swimmers circle
Mr. SwimStar,
Please note that for new users, comments have to be manually approved before they appear on the site. That sometimes doesn’t happen immediately, especially when there’s a high volume of comments. The easiest way to avoid this is to login, or comment with a real email address, then the system will eventually learn if your comments are real or spambots trying to sell Gucci bags.
Regards,
SwimSwam Moderators