Texas A&M Nabs In-state Breaststroker Jacob Schababerle

Jacob Schababerle of Katy, Texas has announced his verbal commitment to Texas A&M University for the 2018-19 season. Schababerle’s pledge marks the eighth Texan (or partial Texan) to commit to the Aggies. The seven other prospective members of the class of 2022 are: Alberto Gomez, Clayton Bobo, Coco Bratanov, Ethan Gogulski, Mark Schnippenkoetter, Peter Simmons, and Shaine Casas.

-I committed to A&M because it struck the perfect balance for me between potential for academic and athletic achievement.
-SwimSwam Editor-in-Chief Braden Keith was my first swim coach.

Schababerle is a two-time USA Swimming Scholastic All-American and NISCA All-American who swims for James E. Taylor High School and Power For Life. He had a breakthrough junior year, achieving big drops in his signature 100/200 breaststroke events. He qualified for his first-ever Winter Juniors on the basis of his finals swims at Austin Futures in the summer of 2016. At 2016 Winter Juniors West, he wound up dropping 1.6 in the 100 and 8.3 in the 200 and made finals in both events. He then swam at the 2017 2017 UIL 6A Swimming & Diving State Meet and took another 7/10 off his 100 breast, finishing second in the state with a time of 56.04. That’s a far cry from the 58.50 he’d been in high school season as a sophomore. Schababerle swam a 4:34.22 in the 500 free at Regionals but didn’t repeat at State. This summer he went best times in just about everything he swam (50/500/1500 free, 50/100/200 breast, 200 fly, and 200/400 IM) and placed 15th in the 200 breast at Summer Juniors.

Schababerle is still just a tad outside SEC Championships scoring range in the 100/200 breaststrokes (it took 54.61 in the 100 and 2:00.66 in the 200 to make the C final in 2017) but he’s improving rapidly and will have a ready-made training group with the Aggies’ Jonathan Tybur, Mauro Castillo, Ben Walker, Raiz Tjon-a-joe, and Jerik Wong.

Best SCY times:

• 100 breast – 56.04
• 200 breast – 2:02.75
• 200 IM – 1:54.09
• 500 free – 4:34.22
• 200 free – 1:43.79

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