Weekend wrap-up, Week 5
MIT, Johns Hopkins, TCNJ, Swarthmore, Case Western, Carnegie Mellon, Denison, Hope and Brandeis
Around Division III
MIT
Ella Roberson is a first-year swimmer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). And she is off to a pretty good start, taking first place in both the 50 Free and 100 Free in a meet against Harvard, and Northeastern (Oct. 27 in Cambridge, MA).
50 Free: Ms. Roberson went a 23.47 (B Cut is 23.57)
100 Free: Ms. Roberson’s time was 51.06, well under the B Cut time of 51.46
Before joining MIT, Ella Roberson had a distinguished high school swimming career, being named Team MVP for three consecutive years (2020, 2021, and 2022), and the Dow High (Midland, MI) Senior Athlete of the Year in 2022.
But lots of athletes come into Division III swimming with impressive high school resumes. Very few get off to this kind of start. This is cool, who knows where this is going?
In that same meet, MIT Junior Kate Augustyn dropped a 2:02.90 in 200 Back which a solid B Cut (2:03.17). The 20th fastest athlete in 200 Back last year posted a 2:02.08, so Ms. Augustyn has a little ways to go to lock up the invite, but not much.
JHU
In Friday’s preview, we tee’d up Kristin Cornish’s weekend at the Thomas Murphy Invitational. But honestly we were a little uncomfortable. Because on October 7th, Kristin Cornish swam 500 Free in a time of 5:10.72, by far her slowest 500 Free since November 2017, which was (probably) her first year in high school.
Anyway, on Saturday, Ms. Cornish swam 500 Free twice, both B Cuts (4:59.38, the 4:55.48). Check that off the list.
Ms. Cornish’s swam her first mile of the year on Sunday. Her time was 16:55.03, which is a stark reminder that Kristin Cornish is different. For any athlete in D3 swimming the Women’s 1650, that is a season defining time. It is closer to an A Cut than a B Cut, and is without a doubt a punched-ticket to a Nationals invite.1 But, for Kristin Cornish, it is kind-of a head-scratcher. Because again, that would be her slowest time in that event since early in high school.
She’s still Kristin Cornish, she’s still the best, and she will probably swim the mile again in December (looks like JHU is going to the Bucknell Invitational). And who knows what she might do there. This is just a strange start to the season.
Matthew Hartshorn delivered a strong performance in the 400 IM, grabbing 1st place amidst a competitive group of Division I Mid-Major swimmers. His time of 4:02.11, while not meeting the B Cut of 3:59.21, is remarkably close for a meet in October. Indeed, the last swimmer to break the 4:00 barrier in October was none other than… Matthew Hartshorn, who recorded two sub-4:00 times in October 2022 at the previous year's Thomas Murphy Invitational.
TCNJ vs. Swarthmore
As the season progresses, we're seeing an uptick in dual meets of significance.
TCNJ vs. Swarthmore was a split decision. The loaded TCNJ Men’s squad unleashed the fury. James McChesney won every event he swam. Ryan Higgins is getting well-deserved attention for his performance.
And look at this table. TCNJ Men’s team is just a freaking wrecking ball.
Now, on the Women’s side, the Garnet took a clear victory. But the table of event-wins is a little less lopsided.
TCNJ’s Lilliana Kuball and Bridget Cleveland won events and placed high in others. Still, they got a full taste of how good that Swarthmore Women’s team really is. This is a top 10 squad right now, and running it up on a team as good as TCNJ Women’s is an indicator of that.
We flagged Genine Collins early as a good bet to have a monster season. This weekend she won the lone individual event she swam (100 Free, 52.76).
And she is dominating her relay splits. Ms. Collins was the anchor for the 200 Medley relay and swam her leg 1.2 seconds faster than the other anchors. And she led-off the 200 Free Relay and just smoked everyone else, coming in a second ahead of all the other teams. TCNJ actually battled back and won that relay (nice job Mackenzie Wall, Katherine Mazzacco, and the aforementioned Lilliana Kuball and Bridget Cleveland). But the hole TCNJ climbed out of was dug for them by Genine Collins.
Case Western vs. Carnegie Mellon
Case Western snuck up on conference rivals Carnegie Mellon and beat the higher ranked Tartans on both the Men’s and Women’s side.
Stand-out swim of the weekend for the Trojans came from Emil Lasida whose 100 Back relay start (49.24) came in under the B Cut threshold (49.48).
Denison
Maybe you guys have already seen this, but it is an oral history of the Denison Men’s team that broke Kenyon’s National Championship streak. Great read.
Hope
The Hope Flying Dutch (which is both a great name and a delightful way to start a haiku) did what you’d expect. They torched their in-conference opponents Kalamazoo and Olivet.
Brandeis
We did not get around to noting that last week Sam Dienstag of Brandeis was named UAA Men’s Swimming Athlete of the Week.2
I think the award was for his event-winning swim in the 500 Free against Vassar, 4:39.02. Which definitely points in the right direction. But this is Sam Dienstag. Dude’s a legend. Our guess is that he will be under 4:30 by December.3
Women’s 1650 Free: A Cut is 16:32.84; B Cut is 17:21.20. 16:55.03 is 22.19 seconds from an A Cut, and 26.17 seconds better than a B Cut. The 20th athlete invited to swim the 1650 at Nationals swam a 17:17.97. As usual, the first time Kristin Cornish swam the mile, she booked a trip to Nationals in that event.
In our defense, the UAA did dump all the award announcements on IG in the span of one day, including awards for performances from three weeks ago, and even Mr. Dienstag’s award for Oct. 23 was announced yesterday (Oct.27).
Legend.