Ryan Hoffer of the Scottsdale Aquatic Club took another .06 seconds off of his National Age Group Record from Sunday morning’s prelims session in the 50 free, swimming a 20.02 for 2nd-place overall at the Federal Way Sectional Championship meet.
In total on the day, he lowered his mark of 20.45 from December, making this the third time that he’s broken Kyle Bubolz’s record of 20.79 set back in 2001. He was second to Cal swimmer, and Scottsdale teammate, Tyler Messerschmidt, who rebroke his own meet record with a 19.25 for the win. That’s faster than he was at NCAA’s last year, and will be points sorely missed by the Golden Bears at this year’s championship in two weeks.
Carson Brindle from Multnomah Athletic was a 20.07 for 3rd place. He’s another great sprinter that will join Eric Hansen’s Arizona Wildcats next year. They already have great medleys, and next year could have some of the best sprint free relays in the country as well.
A full recap will follow the conclusion of tonight’s session, including all of the swims from Olympic star Missy Franklin.
Congrats to him. I was at the meet and there were some really great swims. Fun to watch. Even me, an old timer, was able to score some points. Overall, the teams from Arizona did really well. It is a great state to swim in!!!
I just want to caution the fans that a male 14-year-old phenom doesn’t spell success as he ages. Other than Phelps, most males who are that fast and that far ahead of the competition usually end up coming back to the pack as the other kids mature. It IS exciting seeing such incredible times but I have seen enough super talented youngsters who never made it past the age-group record books.
I agree and don’t worry, I’m cautious. Most of the young NAG record holders on the men’s side haven’t been olympic champions. I know that. But some of them have also continued to develop and have been great champions like Michael Phelps, Ricky Berens, Ian Crocker or more recently Ryan Murphy. For Ryan Hoffer we’ll see.
I agree – a good example of this would be the old LCM record holder for the same event & age group Jason Cobb. He swam ridiculously fast in the late 90s, then completely disappeared….anybody know what happened to him?
before this season, not even a 15-16 year old has been 20.02 besides Ryan Murphy, which was the previous 15-16 NAG record. I’m anticipating Michael Andrew’s sub-20!
Yes, there are fast swimmers on the West coast also!
Pretty darn impressive. Based on the photo of him in the earlier story he looks very muscular for a 14 year old. Anyone know how tall he is?
Comgrats to Hoffer. 20.02 as a 14 year old is absolutely amazing. I don’t see that record being broken for a VERY long time. Let’s hope he can keep his incredible improvement up. Could be a great story in Rio in 2016 if he does. Kudos also to SAC. Kevin has done a phenomenal job building a sold program from top to bottom. He has built a great staff of coaches and led the team as a true head coach should.
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Michael Andrew went 20.7 in his first meet at 13. That plus how fast swimming has been at the age group level this year, I think we’ll see multiple 19s from 14 year olds in the next 5 years
This record is now very high. I admit it. But Michael Andrew, only 13, is already in 20.94. He now has a big target ahead of him. If Michael Andrew doesn’t break it in the next SCY season yes this record could stay during a very long time.
Maybe even more impressive than the great swim by Hoffer is that they apparently have another 14 year old that dropped to 20.85 in this meet. That is within a tenth of the previous record. That would indicate to me that it is more than just a great kid swimming well but a program doing a great job.
Scottsdale Aquatic Club had a fabulous meet. It seems like coach Kevin Zacher is doing something really well. Since he was named head coach five years ago the swimmers have been getting faster and the club has been growing to a national challenger. Anyone following the career of Coach Zacher? Seems like someone worth of following very closely.