Shaine Casas, a senior at McAllen High School in McAllen, Texas, has announced his verbal commitment to swim for Texas A&M University beginning in the fall of 2018.
“I chose Texas A&M University because the team and coaches are so much like a family, and when I stepped foot on campus, I knew that I wanted this to be my new home. There is no doubt in my mind that this program will bring out my full potential both athletically and academically. Greatness is in A&M’s future, and I am so glad to be able to be apart of it! Gig’em!”
Casas was runner-up in the 200 IM (1:47.59) and 100 fly (47.88) at the 2017 UIL 6A Swimming & Diving State Meet. He led off McAllen’s 11th-place 200 free relay in 20.17 (the fastest leadoff in the meet) and the 14th-place 400 free relay in 45.15 (the second-fastest leadoff).
Casas swims year-round for Nitro Swimming. He had a breakout season, culminating in a selection to the U.S. National Junior Team this past week. At Winter Junior Nationals West, he was an A finalist in the 50 free, 100 back, 100 fly, and 200 IM, and a B finalist in the 100 free. He finished the meet with new times that represented significant year-over-year improvements: 50 free (-0.8 seconds), 100 free (-2), 100 back (-2), 100 fly (-1), and 200 IM (-4.5).
His long course season was just as impressive. At Summer Junior Nationals, Casas won his first national title, tying Alexei Sancov for first in the 100 fly. He was runner-up in the 100 back, third in the 50 free and 200 IM, fourth in the 100 free, 6th in the 200 back, and 8th in the 200 free.
Top SCY times:
- 100 fly – 47.64
- 100 back – 48.43
- 200 back – 1:47.31
- 200 IM – 1:47.59
- 50 free – 20.16
- 100 free – 44.36
Casas, who plans to study business, will join fellow verbal commits Clayton Bobo, Ethan Gogulski, and Peter Simmons in the Aggies’ class of 2022.
If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [email protected].
“Sprint” verbal commitments are looking real good for future success 7 improvement. Wishing for a really good “long distance” guy to jump on board as well.
Rumor has it that he had to borrow Clayton bobo’s shirt for the picture.
Really big pickup for A&M.
Texas A&M is seriously raking in with this recruiting class.
Shaine technically does not practice with nitro, but competes attached with them (or other Texas teams such as TWST) at club meets as there are no club teams in McAllen.
Has he also represented TWST before?
There are swim clubs in McAllen including McAllen swim club for which Casas swam for many years under previous head coach Balducci but to participate at national level meets he had to represent other teams since MSC does not have other swimmers close to national level. Shane is by far the best swimmer to come out of the Rio Grande Valley area of South Texas. I do believe he will Iimprove swimming for A&M
Who does he practice with?
He practices with Nitro – I have seen him at practice. There is no such thing as not practicing but swimming for Nitro. His upside is huge.
I get that he does some practices with Nitro; but it looks like McAllen is 4+ hours from Austin, so how OFTEN does he train with Nitro? Especially during the school year.
He moved to Austin for the summer
No such thing as practicing for Nitro but swimming for Nitro???Back when Tim was still around several guys swam under the Nitro flag for travel benefits and never practiced with them. This got Nitro a lot of national exposure at National meets. Once the whole scandal went down, they all changed flags.
“There has never been a scandal at Nitro”- Mike K, immediately after the last scandal