The Texas men continue to build a stellar recruiting class before recruiting season officially opens, pulling their third top-20 recruit of the high school class of 2018 in #16 Matthew Willenbring.
Our high school boys recruit rankings drop tomorrow morning for those curious about the rest of the ranks. Our girls rankings came out this morning, and you can see them here.
Willenbring is part of a really deep class of great 200 freestylers, and is also one of the better IMers in this recruiting class. His early commitment to Texas follows a summer of 2016 in which the Longhorns put three men on the U.S. Olympic 4×200 free relay. Willenbring is also excellent through the relay-distance freestyles, which makes him an ideal NCAA prospect.
Willenbring’s Top Times
- 200 IM – 1:47.00
- 200 free – 1:35.26
- 100 free – 43.71
- 50 free – 20.25
Willenbring is really only just starting to put it together in the 200 IM, where he’s dropped 2.7 seconds in a little more than a year and 5.7 in the past two years. Here’s a look at his progression in that event:
- February 2015: 1:52.76
- December 2015: 1:50.03
- February 2016: 1:49.73
- December 2016: 1:47.00
He’s an in-state pickup for Texas, coming from the Austin Swim Club and Westlake High School in Austin, Texas.
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He is very tall and has loads of potential. I saw his 200 free at Jrs last winter and noticed he doesn’t use his size to his advantage YET–12-13 strokes per 25 which could be 9-10. Very excited to see his progression at UT.
Gotta say it again . . . When was the last time a 200 freestyler did anything at Texas?!
I have followed Matt (and his brother Mark’s) swimming for about 8 years. He is about 6’8” lanky but frame to put muscle on it.
Since he was 10, he was a swimmer that if you watch from beginning of the race, you would think he would finish last, with unorthodox technique. But he was a winner on all age group levels. Very anxious to follow his swimming for next 4 years as a Longhorn.
The last height estimate I heard was 6’11”, which might possibly make him the tallest elite level swimmer in the country. He has noticeably added some bulk in the past year working with Brendan Hanson at Austin Swim Club and he has the frame to add quite a bit more. Matthew also has an older brother, Taylor, who swims at Davidson. Zettle and Willenbring will be re-united at UT as they swam together as age groupers at NTN.
SwimFan9 – we use our own recruit rankings, where Willenbring is #16 in the class.
Given his size, Matthew may have the greatest potential of anyone in the 2018 class.
I’ll bet 4 years from now we’ll be predicting an NCAA Championship for Matthew.
He went 1:46.28 200 IM this year too but got dq’d
So he didn’t go 1:46.28. A DQ is a DQ just ask Matthew Josa at Cal.
Correction: Matthew Willenbring is actually the #6 ranked recruit, not #16:
You’re talking about in the state of Texas, right