High school senior Connor Brown of the Long Island Aquatic Club has verbally committed to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, making his phone call to head coach Matt Tallman on Monday.
Brown is the 3rd freestyler to publicly commit to Notre Dame, though he’s of a little different nature than the other two. Whereas Daniel Speers and Tate Jackson are sprint freestylers, Brown is a distance man.
His best times are 1:42.92 in the 200 free, 4:31.22 in the 500 free, and 15:39.44 in the 1650 free. He also adds a 3:58.90 best in the 400 IM to his lineup, all of which are Winter Juniors cuts.
During his junior season, he improved his time in the 1650 by 11 seconds and his time in the 500 by four, and if that trend continues through his senior season, he’ll have an impact right away in the ACC.
With that conference now scoring down to 24 places, the cut for points in 2014 was 16:16.84 in the mile (everyone who finished the race scored) and 4:27.10 in prelims in the 500 free. While Louisville joining the conference will shift that math a little bit, Brown has two years to drop four seconds in his 500 and 10 seconds in his mile to be solidly in the points at the conference level, and based on what he did last season, those drops are well within reach.
Brown attends Garden City High School, for whom he was 5th in the 500 free at last year’s New York High School State Championship meet.
Congrats connor