100 FREE
18-year-old Abbey Weitzeil of Canyon Aquatics Club, who once held the American Record in the 100 yard freestyle, almost zoomed right by her own personal best in this race. Going out hard in 26.05 at the feet on her turn, Weitzeil came home for a time of 54.42– that’s just four hundredths off of her best-ever time of 54.38 from last year’s US Summer Nationals. The race for 2nd turned out to be exciting, as Katie McLaughlin (Mission Viejo Nadadores) and Stanzi Moseley (Roadrunner Aquatics) fought head-to-head. McLaughlin ended up on top in 55.05 to Moseley’s 55.30. That’s a new personal best for McLaughlin, who just this morning posted the t-10th fastest time in the world this year in the 200 fly. She eclipsed her old best of 55.33, which was done at the 2014 Pan Pac Championships. Moseley, who did pretty well for herself, too, was just .27 off of her personal best.
Looking down into the other finals, Anika Apostalon, who recently announced that she’s transferring to USC from SDSU to focus solely on swimming (she played polo as well as swam at SDSU), put up her 2nd best time ever. She won the C final with a 57.13– her best is a 56.16 from last August, presumably with a full rest. 15-year-old Samantha Shelton of the Mission Viejo Nadadores won the B final with a lifetime best of 56.07, which is an Olympic Trials cut for her.
Santo Condorelli, who was the only man under 50 seconds in prelims, touched out his old USC teammate Cristian Quintero in the men’s race by one hundredth. 49.45 this morning, Condorelli gained two tenths in finals, though his 49.65 was just enough to hold off Quintero, who is training with the Trojan Swim Club. Condorelli looks to be training well with Coley Stickels and Canyon Aquatics Club after announcing his plan to redshirt next year’s NCAA season to focus on Rio and moving to train with Stickels. Yuri Kisil touched at 50.18 for third. This was a fast final– the top seven finishers in the A final all got under 51 seconds, as did Trojan Ralf Tribuntsov, who won the B final in 50.87.
200 FLY
While it was somewhat disappointing to see that Katie McLaughlin scratched from this final (though her 100 free lifetime best is still a plus), Trojan’s Haley Anderson destroyed her own personal best to win the event by a landslide. Her 2:10.84 was an improvement by almost 2.5 seconds, and she won by nearly two seconds. Sonia Wang (2:12.60) of Aquazot followed suit, clipping her old personal best of 2:12.72. Ella Eastin (2:12.98) finished third. Michelle Cefal grabbed 4th (2:13.69), while 16-year-old Regan Barney of Nitro shattered her personal record of 2:18.62 from late May of this year. She put down a 2:15.32 in prelims and then got all the way down to 2:14.69 to secure an Olympic Trials cut.
Rising U of Minnesota sophomore Danielle Nack had a nice swim of 2:15.18, just a tenth off of her best, to win the B final.
Cal Aquatics’ Justin Lynch won the men’s event with a 1:58.43, coming within .63 of his lifetime best. He finished ahead of Mission Viejo’s Grant Shoults (1:59.15) who just got under his personal record. Long Gutierrez, Lynch’s teammate, churned out a solid 1:59.97 to win the B final. That time would have put him third in the A final.
200 BACK
Erin Earley of Hopkins Mariner Swim Team (CT) swam to a win in the women’s 200 back (2:11.62), finishing two full seconds ahead of 2014 NCAA Champion in the 200 yard backstroke Brooklynn Snodgrass (2:13.62). Snodgrass, who competes collegiately for Indiana, out-touched Trojan Hannah Weiss (2:13.78). Regan Barney completed a tough double with a 7th place finish, posting a time of 2:17.14. That’s a bit off of her prelims swim (2:15.87), but that 2:17 is incredibly impressive after swimming such a big 200 fly right before it.
Two swimmers from the Aquazot Swim Club finished 1-2 in the men’s 200 back. First went to Corey Okubo (2:02.55), while his teammate Danny Tran grabbed 2nd (2:03.03).
400 FREE
Just winning the 200 fly simply wasn’t good enough for Haley Anderson. She took a sledgehammer to her prelims time of 4:19.19, posting a very solid time of 4:12.33. She touched just ahead of Allie Davis (4:13.07), and Samantha Shelton swam to a third place finish. Shelton, who won the B final in the 100 free earlier in the session, dropped a good 5.04 seconds from her prelims swim. Her lifetime best before this meet was a 4:21.58; she got under that with her prelims swim (4:19.76) and then totally upended that with a 4:14.72 tonight. That clears the Olympic Trials standard by over three full seconds.
Earlier today, we covered the Bucceto’s Open Meet at Indiana University. Yes, Katie Ledecky was the star of the show, but 15-year-old Emma Nordin rocked a lifetime best (4:16.54) which would’ve been 100th on the all-time 15-16 U.S. girls rankings for the 400 meter free. Read more about that here. Shelton’s 4:14.72 would kick Nordin out of the top 100 (assuming Nordin had been on that top 100; it’s only been updated through June 4th of this year), and would place her at #76 all time, right ahead of Danielle Valley‘s time from 2011. Exciting stuff for two 15-year-olds today.
800 freestyle champion Erin Emery (Sandpipers of Nevada) grabbed 4th with a 4:17.91. No other swimmers got under 4:20 in finals.
On the men’s side, Trojan Swim Club’s Mads Glaesner blasted a 3:49.91 to win by over four seconds. Finishing 2nd was Grant Shoults (3:54.16), followed very closely by Nitro’s Sean Grieshop in 3:54.40. The top six competitors in the A final dipped under four minutes.
Logan Houck, who won the 1500 free over Grieshop last night, took the B final with a quick time of 3:59.11.
Moseley’s time was her best in season by almost a second. Today’s time was with no rest.