Freestyle specialists Brayden Seal will make his way north from his home state of Texas, to Columbus, Ohio, as he verbally committed to The Ohio State University last night.
Swimming for Frisco Aquatics, Seal is primarily a distance freestyle specialists. He has winter National cut in the 200, 500 and 1650 freestyles at 1:39.07/4:28.23/15:34.64. He’s even stronger long course, with two summer junior cuts in the 200 and 800 freestyles, 1:53.64 and 8:2201. Plus two 2013 World Championship Trials times in the 400 and 1500 freestyle events, with times at 3:57.48 and 15:50.62.
His progression is noteworthy; this past summer season, he saw drops of 4sec. in the 200, 10sec. in the 400, 30sec. in the 800 (no recorded swim in 2012), and 25sec. in the 1500. While it isn’t as large, he dropped 3 in the 500 and 5 in the 1650 last short course season, but with a summer he just had, those times are due to drop.
He is just outside scoring in the Big 10 conference meet. With Seal’s progression thus far, Bill Wadley and Dave Rollins can easily develop him into a conference scorer. They have taken senior Alex Miller, from a one event scorer at Big 10s, to now a three event NCAA qualifier.
This summer he finished 13th in the 400m freestyle, and just outside of scoring in the 200, 800 and 1500 freestyle in 34th, 32nd and 22nd place finishes. Outside of freestyle, he is a decent breaststroker with a 2:05.13 200 breaststroke.
Seal attends Wakeland High School, and this past winter at the 4A State Championships, he was State Champion in the 200 and 500 freestyles. Plus he was the breaststroker on their 200 medley relay, splitting at 26.93, and the lead off leg in the 400 freestyle relay at 46.65; both relays finished 3rd overall.
Wakeland was edged by Stratford for the team title, and Seal will play a big role this winter in Wakeland’s chase for a team title.
