The Iowa men didn’t do a whole lot in the fall recruiting season, but since then they’ve had an outstanding season including a pair of Big Ten Championship relays and a 5th-place finish at Big Tens – their highest in 25 years.
In the midst of an outstanding season, they won a dual meet against rivals the Minnesota Golden Gophers for the first time since 1997; so perhaps it’s appropriate that they landed the biggest recruit in their class of 2012 comes from the Land of 10,000 Lakes in Quillan Oak.
Oak hails from the small town of Detroit Lakes in the Northern part of the state, where the average low temperature is below freezing. He actually travels across the state line to train with the Northern Lights Swim Association in Fargo.
Oak is a great breaststroker, with yards bests of 56.6/2:02.5. He’s also a decent sprint freestyler (21.7/47.17) who could develop well in the great Iowa freestyle program. This year’s breaststroke class nationwide isn’t quite as good as last year’s was, but as we’ve seen in the spring signings, it’s still an incredibly deep group.
The Hawkeyes also added Andrew Parker out of Littleton, Colorado – he’s a solid backstroker with bests of 51.0/1:49.7. Based on his backstroke times, I’d expect that he can also make a lot of improvements in his freestyle times, though he has a good 200 time of 1:43.6.
The Hawkeyes have a little rebuilding to do this year, but they are set-up well for a long run of success.
