2023 Potomac Valley Senior Championship
- March 2-5, 2023
- University of Maryland
- College Park, MD
- SCY (25 yards)
- Results on MeetMobile: “2023 PV SC Senior Junior Championships”
A pair of Ivy League commits dominated the 400 IM events at last month’s Potomac Valley Senior Championship in College Park, Maryland.
Nation’s Capital Swim Club 18-year-old Eleanor Sun collected titles in the 200 butterfly (1:56.86) and 400 IM (4:09.82) while also earning a runner-up finish in the 200 breast (2:13.31), all in personal-best times. The Princeton commit dropped over a second in the 200 breast and slightly less than half a second in the 200 fly and 400 IM. Sun broke into the national age group (NAG) rankings for 17- and 18-year-old American girls in the 200 fly, taking .49 seconds off her previous best to rank 98th. In the 400 IM, she moved up from 94th to 81st with her .4-second drop. The Bethesda, Maryland, native is ranked as the No. 17 recruit in the high school class of 2023.
Harvard commit Adriano Arioti cruised to a victory in the 400 IM by nearly 10 seconds with a 3:49.49, shaving over two seconds off his lifetime best entering the meet. The Rockville Montgomery Swim Club 16-year-old now ranks 39th in his NAG rankings, making a massive jump up from 90th. Arioti is ranked as the No. 19 recruit in SwimSwam’s “way-too-early” rankings for the high school class of 2024.
The biggest name at the meet was Paris 2024 Olympic hopeful Erin Gemmell, a Nation’s Capital Swim Club 18-year-old and Texas commit who collected three individual titles. The No. 5 recruit in the high school class of 2023 hit a new lifetime best in the 1650 free, shaving eight seconds off her previous best from January of 2020 with a 16:31.70. In the 500 free, she narrowly missed her personal-best 4:40.63 from December of 2021 — which ranks 71st in her NAG rankings — with a 4:40.96. And in the 200 free, more of her specialty event, Gemmell won by more than seconds with a 1:45.03, more than a second slower than her personal-best 1:43.45 from February’s Metro Championship. Her lifetime best in the 200 free ranks 19th all-time in her NAG. She added personal-best times in the 50 back (26.97) and 100 back (55.60).
Gemmell’s 15-year-old teammate, Gwyn Frick, also brought home a title with a 54.16 in the 100 back. She lowered her lifetime best from last December (55.14) by nearly a full second. Frick added personal bests in the 100 free (52.55), 50 breast (30.50), 100 breast (1:03.79), and 100 fly (57.22).
14-year-old Alex Grocholski tallied a pair of victories in the 200 IM (1:53.28) and 500 free (4:32.24), moving up the NAG rankings in the latter event. By taking almost a second off his lifetime best, he now ranks 63rd all-time in the 500 free among 13- and 14-year-old boys nationally. The Occoquan standout also added a personal best in the 200 free with a sixth-place finish in 1:43.51, dropping over a second off his previous best from last November.
