Over the next few weeks, as the Long Course season closes out, new freshman are arriving on campus, and fans everywhere ramp up for another exciting NCAA Season, we will be running a team-by-team preview of the upcoming NCAA season. Starting with the no.12 teams and finishing with the defending National Championships (Texas men and Florida women) we will work our way down the top finishers from last year’s NCAAs and will also jump into some rising teams that we expect to break into the top tier this season. Click here to see the other women’s previews, and click here to see all of the previews, Men’s and Women’s.
Key Losses: Rose Morahan (3 NCAA Relays), Kelsey Gergen (1 NCAA Prelims Relay)
Key Additions: Rebeka Palm (free/fly), Maddy Dalcamo (sprint free), Jennah Havey (IM/back)
Team Overview: Over the past few seasons, Wisconsin has quietly put together a very strong program in Madison, led by one of the nation’s top sprint backstrokers Maggie Meyer. This is Meyer’s senior season, and it is an important one for Wisconsin if they wish to really establish their reputation with recruits beyond her graduation.
Sprinters: Maddy Dalcamo, the best freshman sprinter coming out of Kansas, is a fairly good freestyler, with high school bests of 50.9/1:50.9 in the 100 and 200 freestyles.
She is the leading candidate to take over for Rose Morahan—who anchored the 400 with a 48.94 last year–on the freestyle relays where the Badgers are defending consolation Champions in both the 200 and 400.
Rebeka Palm could also have an impact on the free relays. The 20-year old freshman is one of the better freestylers in Sweden, and at last summers Swedish Long Course Nationals, she posted converted bests of 23.6/50.5/1:50.6. Wisconsin is likely to also push her into a position as the team’s top future (and/or current) butterflier.
Those two will join returning Wisconsin junior Beckie Thompson (22.23/49.38) in a very good sprint group this season. Thompson finished 16th in the 50 free at NCAA’s last year, though she didn’t swim a great time for her. Sophomores Laura Miller (23.4/50.4) and Ruby Martin (23.0/50.2) should also make big strides in their second seasons of college training. Miller is a former USA-Swimming Junior Nationals finalist in the 100 free, though she didn’t quite capture that form last season.
The Leader: Meyer finished 6th at NCAA’s in the 100 backstroke last season (52.38) and, as the second-best returning swimmer in that event, will be competing with USC’s Presley Bard and a slew of impressive freshman for the NCAA Championship in that event. In the 200 backstroke, Meyer finished 17th (1:54.9), and should be in the B-final this year. She is also a very good freestyle sprinter, with season bests of 22.54 and 49.40 in the sprints.
Breaststrokers: Ashley Wanland is Wisconsin’s lead breaststroker, and was 19th in the 100 (1:01.20) and 11th in the 200 (2:09.72). She should be good for around 20 NCAA points this season. She will be backed up in the breaststroke events by sophomore Paulina Gralow, who went a 1:02.5 in the 100 last season.
Medley Relays: At NCAA’s last season, Wisconsin finished 5th in the 200 medley and 15th in the 400 medley. This huge disparity was not by accident, and is mostly a function of Meyer and Thompson being significantly better the shorter the races get. In fact, Meyer trailed only 100 yard champion Gemma Spofforth for the best split in the 200 medley at 24.07. This year, the 200 should be just as good, as all four members return, but the 400 definitely needs to improve for Wisconsin to move up the ranks.
How to Move Up: Wisconsin will be looking to senior Karlyn Hougan to lead that improvement as the butterflier on those relays. Last season, she split a 24.05 and 54.32 in the finals of the medley relays that were among the slowest in the field. If Hougan can improve those numbers, the Badgers will be amongst the best in both medley relays. Though those times were behind most of the other butterfliers in the medleys, the 100 split was a full second faster than her flat-start time at NCAA’s, which shows things might have begun to really click at the end of last season. She will be pushed by the freshman Palm, who has already gone a 56.4 in the 100 fly, and split a 25.0 in the 50, this season.
Biggest Resume, Biggest Potential: Among the other recruits, there is Jennah Havey, who is a Wisconsin native. Havey has a Summer Nationals cut in the 400 IM, her best event, at 4:19.35. She also has good times in the 200 IM (2:04.4) and 200 back (2:01.5). They also bring in Ashleigh Calvert, who is probably the most underrated swimmer in this class. Her senior-year bests of 52.29/1:53.51 in the 100 and 200 free, and a 59.06 in the 100 back, are largely unimpressive for a team of this level. However, she is 5’11, and was a member of the Navy ROTC in high school, which indicates that she has the physical tools and mental discipline to show great improvements at Wisconsin.
Distance Swimmers: In the distance events, junior Monika Stitski seems to be Wisconsin’s best chance at a few points. She only swam the 500 freestyle twice last season, but one of those was a 4:44 that was the team’s best by 3.5 seconds. This year, I’d bet that she focuses more on the distance freestyle races, and possibly sneaks into a B-final. Her classmate Danielle Beckwith is very good in the mile, with a 16:22 last season. Early this year, she has already gone a 10:01 in the 1000, which is only 2 seconds off of her best time from last season. A near-best in a distance event this early in the season is an indicator of good things to come for her.
2011 Prognosis: This Wisconsin team has a strong leader at the top in Maggie Meyer, and a very good supporting cast. This season, they need to nab a few more individual scorers to move up the ranks. At any rate, they return the majority of the relays that were their strengths last season, and if they can find someone to replace Morahan, they will be moving up the ranks in March.