Kentucky-native Eric Grimes has made a verbal commitment to join William and Mary in the fall of 2015. Grimes is a senior at duPont Manual High School in Louisville and swims for Lakeside Swim Team.
Grimes placed third in the 200 IM (1:52.89) and fifth in the 500 free (4:33.38) at the 2014 Kentucky High School Swimming & Diving Championships. He was also on Manual’s 200 and 400 free relays. His strongest events, however, involve significantly more yardage.
Grimes is a Winter Juniors qualifier in the 200 back, both the 200 and 400 IM, and in all freestyle events from the 200 on up. His best times over the last two seasons have been:
200y IM: 1:51.76 200m IM: 2:09.38
400y IM: 4:01.24 400m IM: 4:36.55
1650y free: 15:46.97 1500m free: 16:19.80
1000y free: 9:40.12 800m free: 8:26.98
500y free: 4:32.54 400m free: 4:04.22
200y free: 1:42.71 200m free: 1:55.53
200y back: 1:52.93 200m back: 2:07.84
Grimes made big strides in just about all these events this past summer. He dropped 13 seconds in the 800m free, for example, and 6.5 in the 200m IM.
William and Mary missed the top podium of the CAA team championship by 8 points last year. Having Grimes in the 2016 lineup will be a boon for the Tribe. While they probably couldn’t have scored many more points in the IMs at conference championships (having already loaded up the A- and B-finals), they could have used Grimes’ times in the 1650 and 500 freestyles where they were less present.
Grimes is still a little off in the 200 free and 200 back (the CAA only scores two finals), but if his improvement over last summer is any indication, he should be a huge contributor for the Tribe from his freshman year forward.