Corbeau Blasts 51.9 In Breaststroke At Texas’s Orange & White Intrasquad

Texas Orange-White Intrasquad (Men)

• October 1-2, 2020
• Jamail Texas Swim Center, Austin, Texas
• Short Course Yards (25 yards)
• Day 1 Results (PDF)

We never got to see the much-anticipated Texas vs Cal matchup at men’s NCAAs last spring, but the Longhorns are back into competition as of today, with the team’s annual intrasquad meet.

Last year, the intrasquad followed the structure of a college dual meet, but this year, the lineup has been split across two days of competition. Today’s session featured six individual events and one relay.

Among the standouts: sophomore Caspar Corbeau was just half a second off a lifetime-best with a 51.99 to win the 100 breaststroke. We run through all the events where we’ve been provided results below:

100 Back

Alvin Jiang was one of the standouts of this meet last year, and he starred again with a 45.70 in the 100 back to open the meet. That’s only eight tenths off a lifetime-best for Jiang, and about six tenths faster than he was at this meet a year ago.

Jiang, who joined Texas last year after two seasons at UNC, is a junior this year. He held top-8 seeds into NCAAs last spring in the 100 back (8th) and 100 fly (5th) before the meet was canceled in the coronavirus pandemic.

Fellow senior Austin Katz was 46.80 as the White team went 1-2. Katz went 46.37 at this meet last year.

100 Breast

Names and results, Men’s 100 breast:

Sophomore Caspar Corbeau took over the 100 breast with an incredible swim of 51.99. That bested the field by a second and a half. It’s also a full second faster than the 53.0 that Corbeau put up at this meet a year ago. Corbeau’s career-best is a 51.46 from last year’s mid-season invite.

200 Fly

Senior Sam Pomajevich won the 200 fly for the second-straight season. He was 1:43.48 last year and 1:42.78 this year – Pomajevich had a down year as a sophomore, but last season looked back on track with a career-best 1:39.35 at midseason before the postseason NCAA meet was eventually canceled.

50 Free

Junior Daniel Krueger crushed the 50 free field at 19.32. He was one of just two men under 20 seconds, the other being Jiang. (Jiang pulled a tough double in the first two events, so his 19.64 here is also very impressive).

For Krueger, that’s the exact same time, to the hundredth, that he went in winning this meet last year. Jiang was three tenths faster than last year’s meet.

500 Free

Freshman David Johnston won the 500 free against a tough field, putting up a massive time drop in his first-ever swim as a Longhorn. Johnston was 4:19.07 out of high school, but went 4:16.45 from an outside lane today to beat standout junior Drew Kibler (4:16.58).

Johnston was our #16 recruit in the class, which is especially impressive for a pure distance freestyle prospect. He had the fastest mile of anyone in the high school Class of 2020, so a big 500 free out of him early has to bode well for Texas’s distance group.

200 IM

The freshman class ended off the meet on back-to-back wins. Carson Foster, ranked as our #1 recruit in the country, went 1:43.73 to win the 200 IM. That’s about 1.4 seconds off of Foster’s lifetime-best. His older brother Jake, a sophomore, was second in 1:44.50.

This event was significantly faster than last year, when Jake Foster won it in 1:46.28 – though that also came at the end of a much-longer 12-event schedule. Today’s alternate lineup included half that many events.

200 Medley Relay

Relay lineups and splits aren’t yet available. But the White team won handily, and had the only sub-19-second anchor in the field. We’re told that was Daniel Krueger, who won the 50 free earlier in the night.

1:25.25 is very solid for dual meet season. Last year, no NCAA officially logged a time faster than 1:26 during the months of September and October. It wasn’t until mid-season invites began in late November last year that any team went faster than 1:25 last year.

Pros

Some Longhorn alums and members of the pro training group competed as well, swimming different events in one heat. Among the notable swims was a 1:33.52 in the 200 free from Townley Haas.  

A new face also appeared alongside the Texas pros – former University of Georgia All-American and 2016 US Olympian Gunnar Bentz. Bentz dropped a 1:42.96 200 fly. Maxime Rooney swam a 46.16 100 fly, and Jeff Newkirk notched a 44.16 100 free.

Tomorrow’s events will include the 100 free, 200 back, 200 breast, 1000 free, 200 free, 100 fly and 400 IM, plus a 200 free relay to end the night.