Photo courtesy of Zane Backes
Las Vegas, Nevada breaststroker Zane Backes has announced his verbal commitment to swim for Indiana University beginning in the fall of 2018. He will join early commits Andrew Couchon, Ben McDade, Brandon Hamblin, Jack Franzman, Michael Brinegar, Michael Draves, Mikey Calvillo, and Zach Cook in the class of 2022.
“I am very excited to announce my commitment to Indiana University. Go Hoosiers!”
Backes swims for Team Rebel Aquatics in Las Vegas. He had a big meet at 2017 Winter Juniors West in December, where he won both the 100 breast and 200 breast and set a meet record in the latter. In the 100, Backes dropped 8/10 in prelims and another 1/10 in finals to win by a full second over Ethan Dang. In the 200 he improved his seed time by 4.8 seconds and touched out Daniel Roy by .25 to get the win, 1:55.08 to 1:55.33. Both Backes and Roy came in under the previous meet record of 1:55.88 set by Steven Stumph in 2012.
In Bloomington, Backes will join a training group consisting of Ian Finnerty, the Big Ten record-holder in the 100 breast. Joseph Kucharczyk was the Hoosiers’ highest scorer in the 200 breast at 2017 B1G Championships. Backes’s best times would have made the A finals in both the 100 and 200 breaststrokes at last year’s conference meet. It took a 52.41 in the 100 and a 1:54.13 in the 200 to score at 2017 NCAA Division I Championships.
Top SCY times:
- 100 breast – 53.16
- 200 breast – 1:55.08
- 200 IM – 1:48.87
- 400 IM – 3:58.43
If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [email protected].
He has had big improvements over the past 18 months. Looking forward to see what he can bring to Indiana!
wow, great get for indiana.
Probably helps that Cody and Zane are from Las Vegas and they have been pretty successful at IU. One of the few studs who didn’t sign in the fall!