USA Swimming National Junior Team member Reece Whitley kicked off his first club meet of the 2017-2018 season with 3 wins in 2 days at the UDAC Rocktoberfest Swim Meet in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. Whitley, a Cal commit, swims for the Penn Charter Aquatic Club.
- Meet results on Meet Mobile Search “UDAC Rocktoberfest”
Through 2 days of the meet n his best event, the 100 breaststroke, he swam a 52.77. That’s the 5th-best time of his career in the race (his best is 51.84) and is easily the fastest he’s been at a non-championship-style meet. It’s also a full second-and-a-half faster than any swimmer of any age had been this season coming into the day – PJ Stevens of Tennessee was the prior pacesetter at 54.34 from his team’s tri-meet with Auburn and Wisconsin.
Whitley also swam the 400 IM, 100 IM, and 200 back in the meet – the latter of which is the only event he didn’t win. In that 200 back, he was out-touched by Tommy Schurer 1:48.80-1:48.84. Whitley’s 400 IM time of 3:47.63 is within half-a-second of his career best in the race, and is two seconds better than his teenage rival Michael Andrew swam on Saturday.
A comparison of splits between the two:
| Michael Andrew | Reece Whitley | |
| Fly | 50.24 | 52.54 |
| Back | 56.88 | 58.42 |
| Breast | 1:04.94 | 1:02.93 |
| Free | 57.32 | 53.74 |
| Total Time | 3:49.38 | 3:47.63 |
While both swimmers are great breaststrokers, the two swimmers pace their races much differently. While Andrew takes advantage of his unparalleled versatility and opens fast, Whitley makes his big break on the breaststroke leg. The difference in overall time, then is left to the freestyle leg – where Whitley was three-and-a-half seconds better on this weekend than was Andrew.
The 200 breaststroke will be raced on Sunday, though Whitley isn’t entered in that race. He’s scheduled instead to swim a triple of the 200 free, 200 IM, and 100 fly.
Like I said again Michael Andrew has peaked he needs to hit the weights and protein shakes toss in a lot a bit of preworkout and he will be down to the 3:39’s
awesome to see this from Reece, thanks for writing
Man, I wish I’d signed up for the Rocktober Fest now 🙁 That would’ve been so cool to watch. I’ve seen Reece at a couple meets, and he is a BEAST.
Now THAT is how you split a race….
Reece was amazing! The 2 back race was by far the most exciting race of the meet and came down to .04. Great things to come this year.
Random question: Does Stevens actually go by “PJ?” I’ve kind of wondered that.
Also, too bad for Reece that 400 IM and 100 breast are the same day in NCAA. Well, I’m sure he’s not too broken up about avoiding 400 IM 😛
That’s a good question. I’ve heard people call him that, but I’ll check if it’s a real nickname or not.
Exactly. The choice between the 100 breast and the 400 IM is an IQ test, and Reese is a smart kid.
MA’s free split always amazes me, and not in a good way.
If Reece is nearly 4 seconds faster than MA in the 400 IM free leg – i would tend to agree on that .