Florida’s Leah Braswell Out of SEC Champs Per Updated Psych Sheets

Karl Ortegon
by Karl Ortegon 7

February 16th, 2021 College, News, SEC

SEC – Women Swimming & Diving + Men’s Diving

  • Wednesday, February 17 – Saturday, February 20, 2021
  • W Swimming: Gabrielsen Natatorium – Athens, GA (Eastern Time Zone)
  • W&M Diving: Mizzou Aquatics Center – Columbia, MO (Central Time Zone)
  • Defending Champion: Tennessee (1x) (results)
  • Live results
  • Live Video – SEC Network
  • Championship Central
  • Psych Sheets (UPDATED)

When the last version of the SEC Women’s Championship psych sheets were released, it included swimmers both over-entered in events, and teams with entries beyond the allowable roster limits.

While teams can pick and choose over-entered athletes’ events day-by-day throughout the meet, a new psych sheet cut to just the number of athletes allowed per roster has been released, and one big name is missing.

Florida distance freestyler Leah Braswell is no longer on the psych sheets. Braswell, a junior, finished third in the mile and ninth in the 500 free at the 2020 SEC Championships, along with scoring in the 200 free C-final. Braswell has not competed since Florida’s mid-season invite meet in November 2020.

Update: the University of Florida says that Braswell is absent due to “health concerns,” but didn’t elaborate on what the nature of those concerns are.

Mid-season, Braswell went 4:38.69 in the 500 free and 16:15.63 in the 1650 free. Though she won’t be racing at SECs, she will still likely get an NCAA invite, as both times were under the invite cut-off last year, and her 500 time this season currently has her fifth in the nation. Florida’s top swimmers in her absence in those events are sophomore Tylor Mathieu in the 500 (9th seed – 4:43.93) and freshman Elise Bauer in the mile (5th seed – 16:07.30).

Swimmers were tested for COVID-19 this morning in Athens, and one SEC coach told SwimSwam that they hadn’t received test results yet as of this evening. The coach also said that it was unlikely that any team had received their results prior to the production of the new psych sheet.

When psych sheets first dropped for the split-gender SEC Championship meets about a week ago, there were at least 33 women and 42 men entered over the 22-person squad limit for the meets. Due to those extra swimmers, there were 249 extra individual entries on the women’s side and 240 for the men.

The newest psych sheets for the women’s meet are still not a final glimpse at who’s swimming what. These psych sheets reflect teams at their pared-down rosters, but swimmers who are racing at SECs may still be over-entered with more than three individual events.

The meet starts tomorrow, with a morning time trials session slated for 10 am ET and the first finals session, with the 200 medley relay and 800 free relay, beginning at 5 pm ET.

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Anonymous
3 years ago

Did we ever hear if this was an injury, illness, or punishment? I’m familiar with some coaches withholding swimmers out of Conference Championships for breaking the team rules, etc.

Admin
Reply to  Anonymous
3 years ago

Article was updated a day after publishing with this info:

Update: the University of Florida says that Braswell is absent due to “health concerns,” but didn’t elaborate on what the nature of those concerns are.

That’s all they gave us.

SwimFani
3 years ago

She is one the updated Pysche sheet

Swimnerd
3 years ago

Such a great swimmer hope to see her a NCAA.

Mr. 305
3 years ago

That’s a big blow to Florida’s team. She was 4:36 in the 500 at 2019 SECs and had the 3rd fastest time in the nation last year in the 1650. Ouch!

SwimFani
Reply to  Mr. 305
3 years ago

Any other fast mares out for other schools?

ACC fan
Reply to  SwimFani
3 years ago

I like your use of the word mares🙂

About Karl Ortegon

Karl Ortegon

Karl Ortegon studied sociology at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, graduating in May of 2018. He began swimming on a club team in first grade and swam four years for Wesleyan.

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