Lezak Picks Finnerty Over Cordes/Miller For Indy SwimSquad Starters

2018 INDIANAPOLIS PRO SWIM SERIES

• May 16th-20th, 2018
• IUPUI Natatorium, Indianapolis, IN
• 50m
• Meet Central
• Psych Sheet
• Omega Results
• Thursday Prelims Heat Sheet
• Live Stream

There aren’t a whole lot of surprises in the starting SwimSquad lineups in Indy, but a few of the trailing teams have made some Hail-Mary type selections looking to spark a big second-half comeback.

Notably, infamous breaststroke-hoarder Jason Lezak will leave U.S. Olympians Kevin Cordes and Cody Miller on his bench, opting instead for NCAA breakout star Ian Finnerty, who will be swimming not far from his home training base at Indiana University. Cordes and Miller haven’t been huge scorers on the tour yet (Cordes scored 4 points in Atlanta, Miller 3 in Mesa), but are at this point much more accomplished in long course than Finnerty. But coming off the first-ever 49-second 100 yard swim in March, Finnerty isn’t a bad pick as a homerun swing for Lezak, who needs to make up about 60 points on the leader.

Natalie Coughlin shuffled her lineup a little, essentially electing to use Hali Flickinger as her flex play instead of Bethany Galat. We had projected Galat with Flickinger starting as a one-event flyer, but Coughlin went with Tom Shields in the fly role and Flickinger as a flex play.

A few other changes from our projections (which you can see here):

• Lezak did choose to use Mallory Comerford in his flex slot as we projected, but he went with the 100 and 200 free as her scoring events, not the 50 and 100 free. (Comerford won the 50 and 100 in Mesa but was only 7th in the 200. She has to deal with Simone Manuel in the sprints this time around, though).
• Leading the tour, Lenny Krayzelburg went with Zach Apple as his flex play instead of our projection, Ryan Held.
• He also chose Katie Ledecky‘s 400 and 1500 frees instead of the 400 and 800. That paid off with Ledecky’s win and world record in the mile last night.
• Kaitlin Sandeno had the same 6 projected starters, just swapped Zane Grothe and Leah Smith between the free and flex roles. Perhaps worried about Ledecky’s presence, Sandeno chose to enter Smith as a flex play in the 400 free and 400 IM, hoping to get an IM win from Smith instead of banking on 200/800/1500 swims that are probably capped at 2nd place with Ledecky competing.

CURRENT POINTS:

• See full Mesa breakdown here

FULL ROSTERS

SCORING FORMAT

• Prior to each meet, the captain will select 6 swimmers from their overall roster to score.
• Each of the six athletes is designated for one specific category, and can score in up to two events from that category. The categories are:
  • Free (50 through 1500)
  • Back (50 through 200)
  • Breast (50 through 200)
  • Fly (50 through 200)
  • IM (200 and 400, not the mystery order 200 IM)
  • Flex (any two races)
• An athlete must make the top 8 to score points:
  • 1st: 10
  • 2nd: 8
  • 3rd: 7
  • 4th: 5
  • 5th: 4
  • 6th: 3
  • 7th: 2
  • 8th: 1

Full SwimSquad Starting Lineups

#KrayzelburgSquad leading the way through night 1, collecting points for @katieledecky's big win. Check out the rest of the #USASwimSquads lineup ? pic.twitter.com/xQzEHlYKzt

— USA Swimming (@USASwimming) May 17, 2018