2023 200 butterfly champion Aiden Hayes and All-American Arsenio Bustos will miss the rest of the 2024-25 season with injuries. NC State head coach Braden Holloway shared that Hayes fractured his wrist and will not return this semester. The “timetable is TBD,” Holloway said, “but [Hayes] is out for a while.”
Bustos, the reigning ACC champion in the 200 IM, posted on his Instagram that he “sustained an injury a few months ago” and has “decided to focus on [his] recovery and health to come back better for the 2025-26 season.”
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Hayes and Bustos are seniors, but neither has raced for the Wolfpack this season, which leaves them the option to race next season as redshirt seniors due to injury. Their last meet was the June U.S. Olympic Trials, where Hayes finished fifth in the 100 fly and Buston sixth in the 200 IM. Additionally, Quintin McCarty has been racing this season but was absent from the team’s midseason invite. Holloway confirmed that McCarty was ill during the meet, is back training, and will return to racing this season.
Being without these two swimmers for the postseason means the Wolfpack have taken a significant hit points-wise at the conference and NCAA level. They were the team’s second and third-highest points scorers at the 2024 NCAA Championships, behind the now-graduated Kacper Stokowski.
Hayes scored 36 points, taking third in the 200 fly (1:39.16), sixth in the 100 fly (44.39), and 10th in the 100 back (44.55). Additionally, Hayes helped the Wolfpack reclaim the 200 medley relay American record with a 1:20.98 after Florida took it 30 minutes after the Wolfpack’s time at the 2024 ACCs. Hayes led off the quartet of himself, Sam Hoover, Luke Miller, and McCarty in 20.07, setting the fastest 50 backstroke time in NCAA history.
Bustos racked up 33 points at last year’s NCAAs, finishing fourth in the 200 IM (1:39.83), ninth in the 100 fly (44.49), and ninth in the 200 breast (1:50.49). He also helped the Wolfpack’s 800 free relay to a ninth-place finish, splitting 1:32.63.
Beyond the NCAA Championships, Hayes and Bustos’ absences will affect next month’s ACC Championships. The Wolfpack have established themselves as the top force on the men’s side of the championships and are chasing their fourth-straight conference title. However, the conference has been shaken up this year with the arrival of Cal, Stanford, and SMU. The Golden Bears, particularly, will challenge NC State’s grip on the conference.
Hayes and Bustos were two of the team’s top scorers at the 2024 ACC Championships, earning 78 and 68 points, respectively. Hayes finished second in the 100/200 fly and took eighth in the 50 free. In addition to winning the 200 IM, Bustos touched third in the 200 breast and 17th in the 200 free.
There goes fourth place….
Is the big international backstroke commit arriving in Jan?
Oleksandr ZHELTYAKOV
What are the injury reporting rules for sports other than basketball and football? In football, a team must report injuries accurately and in a timely manner. It doesn’t seem like that for swimming. The only way we found out about their injuries is by SwimSwam asking them what happened.
This ain’t the Pro’s. Put them under contract first and then request a monthly injury report
There are more rules in place around those sports because of gambling. Same reason why there are very clear rules about reporting injuries in every pro (team) sport.
Also, Betlehem/Fabian are no longer on the roster??? I thought they were staying States-side.
NC State has had a terrible attrition record the last 5 years. Need to bubble wrap these kids walking from class to class.
I think it was an issue with the Hungarian federation.
Betlehem/Fabian is not NCS/Holloway’s fault. From what I gather it was the Hungarian federation.
https://swimswam.com/hungarian-swimmer-david-betlehem-withdraws-from-the-world-championships-due-to-ncaa-issues/
This would only happen to NC state. The dark magic cloud continues to hang over NC state. It seems they’ll never crack the top 4 on the men’s side
The program needs a nice restart button and a new NCSU pool would do the trick I think
They’ve been upgrading the pool a bunch over the past 2 years.
There is no such thing a upgrading a pool ‘a bunch’ when after the upgrades there is still a multi-foot depth differential between lanes 1-2 and lanes 7-8 in the competition tank. No upgrades make any difference with such a vile imbalance in the competitive fairness presented by the pool as a whole. Two options for upgrading ‘a bunch’:
Dang, was really hoping Hayes would finally give us the long awaited sub-20 50 back split at NCAAs.
Wishing both guys a speedy recovery
Seems like that ship has sailed for Seeliger, our best shot at this point is probably Chaney, assuming he was training some first semester.
There are some others who have a chance.
Luca Urlando if he swims it.
Maybe you have not heard of the 5-Star General named Johnny Crush from West Point. Hope to see a 19 from him this year!
I will go on a limb and say Hayes fractured his wrist while riding a scooter….happens all the time to college students….
Unfortunately I’m just brittle and fell 🤧
doh! Hang in there, speedy recovery!
The athletes do follow this peanut gallery here in the comments. Best of luck!
lol fair enough same thing happened to Rex at Stanford last year.
Scooters aren’t allowed for the swimmers at state
lol I did that did that during quarantine
What happens with a medical redshirt in the world of roster limits? Does someone else just get cut to make room for them to return next year? I assume freshman who are signed have to be on the roster so it would have to affect some other returner at that point.
Yes, cut or relegated to the non-competitive roster. They can have as many as they want, they just have to declare their roster for the season by the first meet.
The latest buzz is that the SEC will go to 22/23, other conferences will stick with the 30 mandated by the House settlement, so might not be as bad as it could have been. Still nothing official and probably very much in flux.
I still can’t get my head around the SEC giving their own teams competitive setbacks like this
Right? With all the other conferences saying 30, you’d think the SEC would follow suit. Why hamstring yourself like that? My only thought is that they have similarly draconian roster caps for all non-revenue sports, and they’re betting on football leaving. Of football leaves, they’ll have a slightly better budget situation. It still doesn’t make sense.
SEC has fewer sports overall. It’s a Title IX issue.
inch resting… if rosters have to be declared at the beginning of the year, might this end the practice of second semester surprises? cc cal
It might. Some programs might hold a spot just in case. Most of the time, the coaches have an idea of when someone might be coming, they just don’t share it with the world until they finish the paperwork.