Big Red Flags
The Denison women provide a graphic reminder of what it means to say 'things change quickly this time of year.'
The (so-far) Swim of the Season
Here is the headline from the Denison website.
Makes sense. Ms. Park’s program-record swim in the 100 Back was truly outstanding. The record she broke was Denison’s oldest swim/dive record. By SRS, we have Ms. Park’s 100 Back as the fifth strongest swim in all of Division III this season. Huge swim. Congratulations to Ms. Park.
But Quinn Brown’s 200 Free was the best swim so far this year, by any athlete, in any event, men’s or women’s.
Simply in terms of the number of women athletes with top 10 swims, Denison has pulled pretty much even with Emory. Which feels like the first time this season any team has pulled pretty much even with Emory in any relevant way.
The Emory women still have a significant depth advantage over the rest of the division. But real competition is now visible from the lofty heights occupied by the Emory women.
And this coming weekend, we will see action from the women’s teams of
Chicago and NYU (and Nebraska Wesleyan - go Prairie Wolves!) - 15th Annual Phoenix Fall Classic
Kenyon, Hope, SUNY Geneseo, Carnegie Mellon, and Case Western - Total Performance Invitational
Pomona-Pitzer - Winter Collegiate Swim Invite
Swarthmore - Franklin & Marshall Winter Invite
Trinity - Trinity Invite
Rhodes - Delta State Invite
Johns Hopkins - H2ounds Invitational (at Loyola, but not the Thomas Murphy Invite that Hopkins normally attends; no matter, the 1650 is on the list of events, so you know what we are thinking…)
Plus MIT has a dual-meet against Bowdoin, and is a few weeks away from their big invite
And whoever else we are overlooking.
The forecast is for increasing instability in these team SRS rankings.
Also, the Denison men do look strong and they are starting to register some SRS worthy swims. These two swims jumped out at us.
Last week, the Denison men were not on the SRS chart at all. But now, take a look.
A measurable step in the right direction for them as well.
If Kenyon wants to call the meet the "Total Performance" meet, each swimmer should also have to complete 6 dives, time their own swims, and make their own food (partially because the nearest restaurant to Gambier is only accessible by horse). Now that would be total performance.
The Phoenix Fall Classic is off to a fast start today! In prelims of the first event, women’s 500 Free, the top 5 finishers all touched the wall under last year’s NCAA invite time of 4:58.57!💪