It seems as though the Ivy League schools have figured out where their biggest recruiting advantage lies. Swimmers, which consistently achieve well above the average athlete academically, make great fits for Ivy League schools, and in the past three years, the conference’s recruiting has skyrocketed.
The spearhead of that has been Harvard, where both the men’s and women’s programs brought in two recruits ranked nationally in the top 50 last year. They’ve already gotten off to a great start in this year’s class with the signing of Tyler Rocca out of the state of Florida.
Rocca was plucked right out of Gregg Troy’s Gator Swim Club in Gainesville. His short course times have not been overly impressive, but in long course (probably a side affect of his training ground) he could be a star. He has Olympic Trials cuts in the 200 free (1:52.65 LCM) and 200 fly (2:03.97 LCM). These are his two best events, and they convert to 1:37.44/1:47.36 in yards.
Those marks are two and four seconds, respectively, better than his two best times actually done in a yards pool, which shows the perfomrance gap between courses this far in his young career. If he can get closer to those converted times as a freshman, he would be amongst the team’s top swimmers year one.
The Princeton women’s team also brought in a top-50 recruit this year in Sada Stewart out of York, Pennsylvania. She has the kind of versatility that can be deadly in the Ivy League. Here’s a rundown of her best times in yards:
100/200/500 free – 51.2/1:48.6/4:49.6
100/200 back – 55.65/1:57.92
100/200 fly – 54.38/2:01.35
200/400 IM – 2:00.99/4:18.59
Those times, as a freshman, should put her on at least two relays. She’ll be either the fastest, or within a few tenths of the fastest, swimmers on the team in the 500 free, 200 fly, and both IM’s. Princeton coach Susan Teeter has put together a few solid recruiting classes in a row (including National Teamer Andrea Kropp, who is not on the Princeton roster anymore), and Stewart’s signing takes them a long way towards repeating that feat again this year.
While this article correctly states that Tyler Rocca committed to Harvard and has his times correct I believe it has the ranking of Steven Kekacs who is ranked 31st by collegeswimming.com and has also comitted to Harvard. Just thought you might want to correct it.