USA Swimming SwimSquad Lineups Announced; L. Smith Not Starting

2018 PRO SWIM SERIES – AUSTIN

USA Swimming tweeted out the four starting SwimSquad rosters during this morning’s prelims sessions, with a couple of key changes from our predictions earlier this week.

Update: We’ve also received clarification that each captain had to select each swimmer’s two scoring events in advance. So an athlete can only score in the two selected events, even if he or she performs better in a different eligible race.

 

SandenoSquad LezakSquad CoughlinSquad
KrayzelburgSquad
Free
Zane Grothe Nathan Adrian Hannah Moore Ryan Held
800/1500 50/100 400/800 50/100
Back
Jacob Pebley Regan Smith Ryan Murphy Olivia Smoliga
100/200 100/200 100/200 50/100
Breast
Katie Meili Josh Prenot Molly Hannis Nic Fink
50/100 100/200 50/100 50/100
Fly
Jack Conger Tim Phillips Hali Flickinger Amanda Kendall
100/200 50/100 100/200 50/100
IM
Emily Escobedo Lisa Bratton Madisyn Cox Chase Kalisz
200 200 200/400 200/400
Flex
Michael Andrew Justin Ress Melanie Margalis Matt Grevers
50FR/100BR 50BK/100BK 200FR/200IM 50BK/100BK

We had projected Mallory Comerford as a starter for Team Lezak, but she was a late scratch from the heat sheets – something Lezak prepared for by using Justin Ress as a flex instead. Another key change was on Team Sandeno, where first-round pick Leah Smith is not starting. That might suggest that Smith, too, isn’t competing in Austin – something we should find out later this morning if Smith no-shows the 200 free, where she’s seeded first. Sandeno is starting Michael Andrew in the flex spot instead.

Team Krayzelburg’s lineup is as expected, with the only change being that Olivia Smoliga is starting at backstroke and Matt Grevers in flex. We projected the other way around.

Team Coughlin was right-on with our projections outside of starting Hali Flickinger at fly instead of Tom ShieldsThat’s looking like a genius move for Natalie Coughlin after Shields struggled mightily in his prelims 100 fly. In fact, Flickinger was faster (1:00.18) in the women’s 100 fly than Shields was in the men’s (1:00.62).

Outside of the Smith-Andrew swap at flex, Team Sandeno also elected to use Katie Meili at breaststroke instead of Andrew Wilsonas we’d predicted.

We’ll be following the SwimSquad scores as the meet goes along – stay tuned to SwimSwam.com for updated scoring and more.

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SUNY Cal
6 years ago

What’s up with Leah Smith??? Injury??

das swimmer
6 years ago

Go Sandeno!!!!!

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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