Liberty University Last-Chance Meet
- February 24th-25th, 2018
- Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia
- 25y (SCY)
- Live results
Liberty University debuted their brand-new, built-for-competition pool in December, and the facility is already proving its got some speed.
5 swimmers put likely NCAA qualifying times in on the first day of the Liberty-hosted last chance meet on Saturday, including 3 from the Duke Blue Devils and 1 for the home team Liberty.
Around 39 women are usually invited in each event, with around 28 or 29 men earning the same. All 5 probable invites from Saturday were done by women.
The Highlights:
- Virginia Tech freshman Joelle Vereb swam a 59.58 in the 100 breaststroke, which moves her to 19th in the national rankings with all noteworthy conference results in. That will earn her a certain invite to the NCAA Championships.
- Duke sophomore Kylie Jordan swam a 52.03 in the women’s 100 fly. That’s well under the 52.52 that it took to qualify last year, and ties Jordan for 26th in the country in the event (one spot ahead of Duke teammate Alyssa Marsh).
- Duke junior Maddie Hess swam a 52.38 in the 100 back That jumps her to 30th in the national rankings and a probable invite to the NCAA Championships. She previously ranked 57th in the event with a 52.89 from the ACC Championships.
- Liberty junior Alicia Finnigan broke her own school record and earned an NCAA invite in the 200 fly with a 1:55.33. That ranks her 25th nationally.
- Duke’s 3rd probable time came in the women’s 1650, where senior Verity Abel swam a 16:04.66. That’s her lifetime best by 13 seconds – all of which she dropped in the last week since a 16:17 at ACCs. That ranks her 18th in the country and will earn her a swim at NCAAs. She last qualified for the meet in 2016, but missed out last season.
For Abel to go her PB by 13 seconds in the 1650 like that is, in a sense, not all that surprising. At all four of her ACC’s she had had to swim two hard 500’s on Thursday, then either two hard 400 IM’s or two hard 200’s the next day, and only then got to do a mile. There’s no way any swimmer is going to be at his or her best on the third day of a meet, especially a distance swimmer with a grueling triple. The accumulated lactic acid simply doesn’t leave your body that quickly. Anyway, now, thanks to this fresh effort, she gets to retire with a 16:04 to her name rather than a 16:17.… Read more »
Note to the Duke staff: Give your women’s team some more rest next year!
Way to go everyone!
When do women’s NCAA invites come out?