The 500 free and the 50 free were untouched with regard to scratches on day 2 at the 2016 Women’s NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships, but the release of Thursday’s heat sheets revealed 23 scratches in the 200 IM.
That reduced the number of swimmers down from a pre-meet entry number of 85 all the way to 62.
Two of those swimmers were seeded to compete in the three circle-seeded heats at the end of prelims, including North Carolina State junior Alexia Zevnik who was seeded to score at 16th in 1:56.02.
Also scratching from the top 24 is LSU junior Kara Kopcso, who was seeded 20th in 1:56.55. Those drops move USC’s Riley Scott (1:56.76) and Denver’s Bailey Andison (1:56.81) into the circle-seeded top 24.
A handful of other noteworthy names scratched the race, including three swimmers who were unlikely to score here but will contend for the breaststroke titles:
- The top seed in the 100 and 200 breaststroke, Indiana freshman Lilly King (seeded 1:57.21 for 31st in the 200 IM)
- Defending 100 breast NCAA Champion Sarah Haase of Stanford (1:57.74 for the 36th seed in the 200 IM)
- Louisville’s Andee Cottrell, who is seeded 3rd in the 100 breaststroke (1:57.90 for the 39th seed in the 200 IM).
All three swimmers are expected to swim the breaststroke legs on their team’s 400 medley relays to end the session, while Zevnik will lead off NC State’s relay. Kopcso and Indiana’s Gia Dalesandro will each swim the butterfly legs of their teams’ respective relays, with the Indiana Hoosiers seeded 5th entering the meet.
The only other big scratch of the meet is Boise State’s 400 medley relay. They were seeded 14th coming into the meet, but the Broncos will have a 200 free relay swim and three individual races scheduled before the medley relay. The Broncos were seeded 14th in Wednesday evening’s 800 free relay, but fell to 22nd.
