DiRado, Jaeger Win Richmond SwimSquads, But Adams Still Leads

2019 PRO SWIM SERIES – RICHMOND

• April 10-13, 2019
• Collegiate School Aquatics Center, Richmond, VA
• Meet information
• Psych Sheets
• Live results

Maya DiRado’s DiradSquad edged Connor Jaeger’s Jaeg-Train by half a point in Richmond, but it’s Cammile Adams and the Adams Family who continue to lead the 2019 SwimSquad Battles.

SCORING FORMAT

• Prior to each meet, the captain will select 6 swimmers from their overall roster to score.
• Each of the six athletes is designated for one specific category, and can score in up to two events from that category. The categories are:
  • Free (50 through 1500)
  • Back (50 through 200)
  • Breast (50 through 200)
  • Fly (50 through 200)
  • IM (200 and 400, not the mystery order 200 IM)
  • Flex (any two races)
• An athlete must make the top 8 to score points:
  • 1st: 10
  • 2nd: 8
  • 3rd: 7
  • 4th: 5
  • 5th: 4
  • 6th: 3
  • 7th: 2
  • 8th: 1

Running Totals

Here’s a look at the team-by-team scoring:

DiRadSquad

DiRado got the expected great showings from Manuel, Murphy and Kalisz. She also correctly predicted a big 1500 free swim from Moore, even if Moore scratched the 800 and didn’t score anything there.

Jaeg-Train

Ledecky and Lazor were almost sure things to score huge. Dressel was somewhat of a wild card, but looked a lot more like a prepared Dressel than a beat-up, in-season one. Grevers had some risk without much competing this year, but came through very well. Missing points in the IM was tough, but Jaeger really had no good options beyond Wilson, who was a longshot at best.

Adams Family

Bentz scratching the meet hurt a lot for Adams. But Smoliga made up for it with probably the best showing of any athlete in Richmond. Dahlia and Andrew were expectedly great. Geer wasn’t quite as good as she’s been, scoring-wise, on the tour, but got the job done.

Beisel Bunch

Grothe and Flickinger were good. Cordes was way better than expected. Unfortunately, a scratch from Smith in the 200 IM hurt, as did Haan’s scratch from the 50 back.

Our Projections

We published our own suggested starters before the meet. You can view them here. While they by-and-large matched what each captain did, there were a few changes. We’ll run through them here, and track how well each team would’ve done had they used our projected starters and starting events instead:

DiRadSquad

We justified our odd breaststroke pairing based on Fink’s superior results in the 50 and 200 at both previous stops. But his 3rd-place finish in the 100 was better than a 9th in the 50, so DiRado outdoes our projections. Good call, Maya.

On the other hand, DiRado’s decision to use Moore in the flex role instead of Eastin (400 IM winner, 200 IM runner-up) yielded 8 less points. So it’s pretty close to a wash here. DiRado probably regrets not starting the Stanford IMer following in her own footsteps, but Moore would’ve also been a great call had she swum the 800 free.

Jaeg-Train

Ledecky’s events are basically splitting hairs. She’d have been a perfect 20 either way. On the other hand, Hannis did outscore Meili in the sprint breaststrokes by six.

Beisel Bunch

We picked Drabot over Wright because of the ceiling – Drabot is a likely 2-event scorer, while Wright is only a real scoring factor in the 200. As it turned out, pretty stiff 200 fly competition crowded out Wright, while Drabot swam great in her fly races.

On the other hand, we picked Flickinger in the 400 IM, which she ultimately scratched. Beisel escaped there with 8 more points than our lineup, while losing 9 in the butterfly. Once again: about a wash.

Adams Family

We noted in our projections how Andrew had been on a tear in the 50 backstroke, and he remains undefeated through this Pro Swim Series in the 50 back. Meanwhile we bet on Dressel to give him a run in the 50 fly, which he did.

The breaststroke choice also came down to Escobedo vs Prenot. Both were pretty solid scorers, though Prenot’s 14 points would’ve made him Adams’ fourth-highest scorer.