Caeleb Dressel only gave a preview of his full talents at prelims of the Flordia high school state class 2A championships this morning.
Dressel led off both free relays with big-time splits, going 19.58 in the 50 and 44.23 in the 100, giving both relays the top seed for tonight’s finals. But Dressel merely cruised his individual events, going just fast enough to grab the inside lane for tonight’s finals. He was 1:37.70 in the 200 free and 47.38 in the 100 fly with very relaxed back-halves of each race. Dressel will shoot for national records tonight in both races, most notably the 100 fly, where he’ll attempt to break Joseph Schooling’s record of 45.52 set last night in the 1A meet.
Dressel’s Clay High School team is in line to win a pair of relays, but likely doesn’t have the depth win a team title. The early frontrunner looks to be American Heritage, which has multiple swimmers in scoring position of nearly every event.
On the girls’ side, the team race is wide open with last year’s champions Lawton Chiles departed to class 3A. Estero High School looks to be in good shape after the prelims session with a swimmer in all but 3 of the A Finals and three or four point scorers in multiple events. Washington High School of Pensacola and Acadamy of the Holy Names seem to be in position to make a run as well, but will need big evening sessions to overcome Estero’s depth.
Estero sophomore Kaitlyn Hauser looks in line to win both the 200 and 500 frees, and Gulf Breeze’s Tori Bindi has a shot at dual titles of her own, leading the 50 and 100 free.
Finals will begin at 5:30 Eastern Time tonight. You can find live results here.
