Wednesday Prelims
500 Free
Men
The first event of the day suggested the Emory Men ‘s (extremely good) odds of winning this might be understated. Crow Thorsen was a plausible candidate for a mid-table B Final spot, and instead dropped about 2.5 seconds off his seed time to finish second in prelims. Second behind Justin Finkel of Connecticut College who was seeded first and finished first.
Mr. Thorsen’s little brother, McKee (Harrison) Thorsen was not supposed to final at all, but he also dropped a little time and grabbed the last spot in the B Final. Because of the Thorsen brothers, Emory’s expected 4 points from this event is starting to look like a minimum of 12 points.
Kenyon was supposed to have two swimmers vying for a B Final spot, but neither quite got there, while Denison was supposed to be limited to two B Finalists, but instead got an A Finalist in Lucas Conrads, and the following B Finalists: Luke Landis, Matthew McIntire, and Tyler Distenfeld.
Watch for performances from three of this blogs favorite athletes:
Crabby distance-icon Kellen Roddy versus
NYU upstart Connor Vincent versus
the Pride of Brandeis Sam Dienstag.
Any one of them could take this thing, though we still think it will be Justin Finkel.
Women
Middlebury’s Chloe Katz had the coolest swim of the morning. Expected to finish maybe 13th she swam her seed and took the last spot in the A Final. Denison landed both Tara Witkowski and Quinn Brown in the A Final as expected, while only Kenyon’s Bengisu Caymaz held on to an A Final spot. Kenyon’s Molly Haag did B Final, so she will be contributing points, but Kenyon would have liked an early Denison stumble in this event and it did not happen. Taryn Wisner is in the B Final, along with two Williams swimmers - Frances Hayward and Lily Codd. NYU’s Caitlin Marshall is in the top spot, and Emory’s indomitable Penelope Helm, slated to finish 11th instead grabbed the second seed.
200 IM
Men
Garrett Clasen won this thing two years in a row and he has the top spot after prelims. Derek Maas swam (/sandbagged?) his way into second place with a time 1.68 seconds slower than his season best. Braydon Morford, CMU First-Year, broke out at UAAs and appears to still be in reasonably good shape, dropping 1.41 seconds off his seed time to grab the third spot in the A Final. The other great First-Year performer from the UAA, Cooper Costello grabbed a spot in the B Final, meaning Chicago has three athletes ready to score points in this event.
Like in the 500 Free, the Denison Men overperformed. NCAC Swimmer of the Meet Patrick Daly was supposed to A Final and did. Denison First-Year Devin Testin and Junior Gavin Jones were NOT supposed to final at all but both are in the B Final. The Kenyon swimmer expected to B Final here fell short by an agonizing 0.16 seconds.
Where Kenyon is struggling Denison is thriving. And Williams is not overperforming but they are getting their athletes into the finals spots predicted by the psych sheets (more or less).
Women
Greta Gidley of Hope College blew up this prelim swim, going 1:59.79, which feels like a direct challenge to last year’s Swimmer of the Year, Sophia Verkleeren of Williams, the only other athlete to go under 2 minutes in this event all season. Kenyon’s Jennah Fadely swam well enough to A Final. She will be joined by teammate Jordan Herrera , who had perhaps the most surprising swim of the meet so far. Expected to finish 30th, Ms. Herrera will be swimming for the big points in the A Final.
Sammi Thiele , the lone representative from Austin College, held on to an A Final spot. Denison was hoping for at least one A Final spot but it did not materialize.
MIT standout Kate Augustyn took the final spot in the A Final with a time more than a second slower than her season best.
50 Free
Men
As is becoming the norm, good news came to Kenyon in the form of Djordje Dragojlovich, who was slated to finish 11th, but instead grabbed the last spot in the A Final. Tobe Obochi seems healthy and the MIT Senior has the top spot going into finals. Right behind him is Emory veteran Nicholas Goudie, who was supposed to finish about 11 spots worse than that. Mr. Goudie looks driven - he was out of the pool and heading off the deck while his competition was still hanging on to the wall, catching their breath. TCNJ legend James McChesney will be in the mix along with NESCACers Neil Mortimer and Nathaniel Taft (a First-Year), Sprinter U’s David Bajwa, and Luke Schwenk, the lone representative from tiny but picturesque Saint Mary’s College of Maryland.
In terms of the horse-race, Williams will have Ev Nichols - the owner of perhaps the most unusual Instagram in all of Division III swimming - looking to score points in the B Final.
Women
Alex Turvey took the top spot, just ahead of Kaley McIntyre. Both swam faster than the 22.78 with which Ms. McIntyre won this event in finals last year.
Two NESCAC Seniors, Jillian Cudney of Tufts and Tatum Zupnik of Bowdoin, had great swims and made unexpected jumps into the A Final.
Luther’s lone representative, First Year Mia Prater, fell back a bit from her expected finish but still made it to finals. This is good experience for a swimmer who looks like return trips to Nationals are in her future.
This isn’t really a huge horse-race event as there will be no swimmers from Denison, Kenyon, or Williams in the A Final, though both Denison (Grace Kadlecik) and Williams (Emma Dimter) have athletes in the B Final.
200 Medley Relay
Men
It’s NYU, then Emory, then Kenyon, then Williams, making this the most horse-racy of today’s horse-race relevant events. Kenyon’s finish is the big surprise here - they were supposed to B Final, so the A Final points can represent a nice bump towards the end of what has been a rather tough day. This event has also been unkind to Tufts and Calvin, who find themselves in the B Final after entering with A Finals expectations.
Highlights
NYU’s Derek Maas went out 21.42 to open for NYU, with his closest competition being Ev Nichol who went 21.81.
Emory’s Jake Meyer swam his breast leg in 23.45, about a second faster than everyone else (except Denison’s Elijah Venos and Tufts’ Emmett Adams who flirted with 24 seconds in their legs).
Tobe Obochi posted an authoritative 19.43 to anchor MIT’s effort.
Women
Kenyon Medley Relay: see. Told you. (Just barely, and needed another team to DQ, but still…)
Denison, Williams, Kenyon and a host of other highly competitive teams - NYU, Tufts, Emory, MIT, and Pomona-Pitzer - are in this A Final. While Kenyon is the biggest ‘surprise’ (not a surprise), NYU actually was ranked 15th on the psych sheet so… making the A Final is big for them.
Highlights
MIT’s Kate Augustyn started her team off with an event best 25.63 backstroke leg.
Jennah Fadely (unsurprisingly) dominated the breaststroke leg (27.68), though Denison First-Year Riley Tofflemire wasn’t that far behind (27.97).
Hope Xayaveth of NYU had a comically close relay exchange (r:0.01) followed by the single fastest butterfly leg of the event.
In a very fast finish, Ella Roberson (FY, MIT), Jillian Cudney (SR, Tufts), and Grace Kadlecik (JR, Denison) all went under 23 seconds in the anchor leg.
Diving
We still don’t know enough about diving to talk about it much. But we are pretty sure that the announcer today was the man named Men’s Dive Coach of the Year last season, and subsequently dismissed from his position at Kenyon without explanation, the one and only Ron Kontura. It’s good to see him close to the sport he loves.
Fun starts again in an hour. See you at the GAC.
Lol
Great first day! 🔥🔥🔥