Dolfin Swim of the Week: Brownstead’s 19.24 & 18.67

Disclaimer: Dolfin Swim of the Week is not meant to be a conclusive selection of the best overall swim of the week, but rather one Featured Swim to be explored in deeper detail. The  Dolfin Swim is an opportunity to take a closer look at the context of one of the many fast swims this week, perhaps a swim that slipped through the cracks as others grabbed the headlines, or a race we didn’t get to examine as closely in the flood of weekly meets.

Sadly, it was a harshly-truncated week of swimming. But Matt Brownstead got in a couple of history-making swim under the wire.

As the global coronavirus pandemic raged, Brownstead torched a 19.24 at Pennsylvania’s 3A high school state meet. Later in the same session, he crushed an 18.67 anchor on State College Prep’s 200 free relay.

The individual swim broke the national high school record, both overall and for public schools. The old record was held by Caeleb Dressel, now a world champ and considered one of the top swimmers on the planet. Dressel had been faster as a high school, but at the club level, where he went 18 as a senior. The high school senior Brownstead moves to #4 all-time among boys in the 17-18 age group – he’s behind the only three U.S. juniors to break 19 seconds.

ALL-TIME TOP 10: BOYS 17-18 50 FREE

PLACE SWIMMER TIME
1 Caeleb Dressel 18.67
2 Ryan Hoffer 18.71
3 Michael Andrew 18.88
4 Matt Brownstead 19.24
5 Drew Kibler 19.35
6 Seth Stubblefield 19.41
7 David Curtiss 19.42
8 Tony Ervin 19.43
8 Gus Borges 19.43
10 Matt Grevers 19.44

The following day, Brownstead went a career-best 43.29 in the 100 free prelims, qualifying first. In the middle of that day, with a flood of sports-related cancellations across the country, the PIAA canceled the 3A meet before finals could take place. But even without a finals swim in the 100, Brownstead still took full advantage of what turned out to be his last shot at a history-making swim.

RACE VIDEO:

 

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Swammer
4 years ago

This was amazing. Can’t believe I never heard of this kid before these performances. Can’t wait for next week’s swim of the week. Oh wait…

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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