Cal coach Dave Durden has a pretty good idea of how to build a National Championship squad. The foundation of last year’s team that took the NCAA title was their freestylers. Now with many of those freestylers moved on from the collegiate program, Durden is going out and reloading, only this time he’s found a group that is still very good in the sprints, but are even better beyond.
The latest verbal commitment from Cal is Michael Haney out of California’s The Claremont Club. Collegeswimming.com ranks him as the #32 swimmmer in the class.
Starting with the sprints, Haney has bests of 20.6/44.6. But he also goes a 1:37.7 in the 200 free, which is top-5 in the class. Furthermore, he is an above-average butterflier, with bests of 50.1/1:50.0.
Those sprint freestyle times are about as good as former Cal superstar Nathan Adrian’s were after his junior year. Beyond that, Adrian was a slightly better 100 butterflier (don’t forget that he was an All-American in the 100 fly as well), but Haney’s versatility into the 200-yard races exceeds those of his predecessor. Of course he still needs to swim a race before we can heap too many expectations on him, but as far as his specialties, he falls somewhere between Tom Shields (without the backstroke) and Nathan Adrian (with a better 200 free) on the sprint spectrum.
If he develops even half as well as either of those guys did, he’s going to be a good one.
Michael Haney has that lanky high elbow recovery fluid stroke that is nearly identical to current Cal Freshman Tyler Messerschmitt and CIF-Southern Section rival Nick Soedel (different division though) now a Frosh at University of Utah. All similar stroke mechanics as former Soviet mega star Alexander Popov.
^^Great comment!
Also Trent Williams from San Diego. 45/137 freestyler.
Physically, he’s extremely lanky and tall, with very little of the muscle that starts to bulk up male swimmers around the late teens, so Cal’s well-regarded lifting program might work wonders on him.