Those 400 Medley Relays
Men
At the start of Nationals, the record in the Men’s 400 Medley Relay final was 3:10.51, set on March 16, 2017 by the Emory relay team of Sage Ono, Andrew Wilson, Christian Baker, and Oliver Smith. Oliver Smith, of course, is the current record holder in the 50 and 100 Free. And Andrew Wilson has long held the title of greatest Men’s Division III swimmer of all time. He’s also the only Division III swimmer with an Olympic Gold medal.
Mr. Wilson’s memory hangs over this meet, partly because NYU’s Derek Maas has chosen to swim precisely those events that defined Mr. Wilson’s legacy. Mr. Maas swam the 200 IM all season, but he focused his attention in big meets on backstroke. For Nationals, Mr. Maas is swimming 200 IM, 100 Breast and 200 Breast. Andrew Wilson holds the Division III record in 100 Breast and 200 Breast, and until Wednesday night, held the record in 200 IM. Mr. Maas has extensive experience with the breaststroke events from his SEC days, so his event choices aren’t eccentric. Just a bit on the nose, as they say. Still if he can do it, that will speak for itself.
Anyway, that was the record until both Kenyon and Emory broke that record last night. NYU was in the lead after the first leg - Derek Maas swimming backstroke - but both Yurii Kosian and Ryan Soh stayed close enough, as did Calvin (David Bajwa) and Williams (Ev Nichols). The next round belonged to Jake Meyer (52.22) and Garrett Clasen (52.39), two athletes with remarkable similarities that we hope to explore when we get a little downtime (of which there is none).
Those of you focused on the narrative will note that Kenyon must re-emerge here somewhere, and the fact is that the comparatively unheralded (at least in terms of breaststroke) Alecsa Dobric just killed it. He wasn’t going to keep pace with Mr. Meyer or Mr. Clasen, but he did the next best thing, which was swim faster than the rest of the field. It’s like the old joke about the two hikers and the bear.1
The beloved Marko Krtinic’s Senior season is drawing to a close with a number of swims that are best classified as heroic, if not particularly fast. At NCACs, to avoid a DQ in a tight meet, he swam through excruciating cramps in the 200 Fly and had to be dragged from the pool by five teammates and coaches (he’s a big dude) and deposited on the deck where he writhed in pain for several minutes. This week, he did not even final in 100 Fly, the event he won last year, and has not looked 100% at any point. Except in this event, when he was most needed. Yes, a host of the best butterfliers in the history of Division III bested his time (Jesse Ssengonzi, Julien Camy, Jeff Echols, and Frank Applebaum), but Mr. Krtinic’s 47.00 was simply good enough to keep his team in this event.2
And then Djordje Dragojlovich demolished everyone else in the pool, going 42.42. Nick Goudie and Sebastian Vernhes were closest behind, but that still meant more than 0.80 seconds back.
Women
Three teams went 3:39-something in this event.
The Williams team that swam finals and the team that swam prelims had only one overlapping swimmer - Sophia Verkleeren. We assume Ms. Wager, Ms. Kilcoyne, and Ms. Dimter were either late additions based on evaluation of their performance, or the switch was intended all along, sparing those athletes to focus on prelims in their individual events. Kenyon had one change, inserting Lisa Torrecillas-Jouault in the anchor leg. She replaced Sydney Geboy who anchored Kenyon’s A Final 200 Medley Relay earlier in the meet, and will have had a hand in four successful Kenyon relays in this meet.
MIT kept their team intact. We keep getting distracted writing this, because our eye is drawn to Kate Augustyn’s backstroke start. 53.41. Celia Oberholzer’s Division III record from March 22, 2013 is 53.46…
What just happened here? That’s an eleven year old record…
We were on about Kate Augustyn being our early favorite for Swimmer of the Year. Then you get here and everybody is fast and you see astonishing swims every couple of minutes. It is easy to feel like a dog chasing squirrels. But this feels like a big deal.
Congratulations Kate Augustyn.
Anyway, Williams beat Kenyon by 0.01 seconds. Everyone in this group of three teams was brilliant. And this is a totally unfair comparison group because each of these athletes is incredibly fast, which is why they are being discussed here. But among these teams, Williams did not win a single leg of this relays except for Ms. Kilcoyne’s fly, but the margin there was so heavily in Williams’ favor that Williams hung on. And the fact is, when you are national champion in a relay event by 0.01 it means everybody on that team swam as fast as they had to, and if any had let up the slightest amount, no national champion. Huge congratulations to that group.
Finally, Gwen Eisenbeis of Kenyon, the one who started the 200 Free Relay prelims with the goggle issue, continues to make the most of her battlefield promotion. It is a lot of pressure on this young swimmer. Still, swimming is about distance and time, and Ms. Eisenbeis’ times make it clear that she belongs on this stage.
Two hikers awake to find their tent being ripped apart by a hungry bear. Hiker #1 starts putting on his sneakers. Hiker #2 says ‘Are you crazy, you can’t outrun a bear!’ Hiker #1 says ‘I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.’
