2015 Big 12 Swimming Championships: Day 2 Prelims Real-Time Recaps

2015 Big 12 Men’s and Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships

• Dates: Wednesday, February 25th – Saturday, February 28th (co-ed); prelims 10AM/Finals 6PM
• Location: Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center, University of Texas (Central Time Zone)
• Defending Champion: Texas men/women (results)
• Psych sheet: Here.
• Live Results
  
• Live Video (If available): TBD
  
• Championship Central

The battle for the team championship at Big 12’s is almost over before it’s begun, but there is a really interesting race for 2nd on both sides.

For the men, that already was hugely impacted on day 1 when West Virginia drew DQ’s in both of their men’s relays, which at a meet that’s this condensed is about the only way that a team can hurt themselves in team scoring on a relay.

At any rate, there’s still lots of important individual swims going all around. This will be an especially good test for the Texas men, who are mostly unshaved and on just a small amount of rest for those who are already qualified for NCAA’s. Expect some of their second-tier swimmers to really go after prelims marks as a test, and then shave before finals if they’re not confident enough in their standards in terms of NCAA qualifying.

The day will start with the 500 free, 200 IM, and 50 free. Those aren’t the races where most of the stars lie in this meet, but the 50 free on the men’s side and the 200 IM on the women’s side are the races most likely to produce eye-catching results.

Women’s 500 free – prelims

In a well-spread 500 free preliminaries, the Texas women took four of the eight spots into the A-final, led by seniors Kaitlin Pawlowicz and Kelsey Leaneave in times of 4:43.90 and 4:45.28, respectively.

Those two will be the favorites in finals, heavily, and both will need to improve their times to lock up an NCAA invite, at least in this event specifically.

Coming in 3rd in the heats was West Virginia’s Emma Skelley (4:50.11), and the 4th qualifier is TCU’s Mikayla Winkler in 4:51.56, which is a 6-second improvement over her previous season-best. Each of the conference’s five teams will be represented in the final, with Kansas sophomore Sammie Schurig swimming a 4:54.60 for the 7th side, and Iowa State’s Mary Kate Luddy qualifying 8th in 4:54.64.

Men’s 500 free

Clark Smith and the distance men of Texas nearly took up all eight spots in tonight’s final. Smith(4:16.71) will be your top seed for tonight with Sam Lewis (4:18.17) and Johnathan Roberts (4:18.71) not too far behind coming in second and third. Expect for all three to receive invites to NCAA’s in the coming weeks.

Jake Ritter (4:19.56), Nick Munoz (4:21.15) and PJ Dunne (4:24.17) all with significant drops for the Longhorns to make the A final.  It looks as though senior Clay Youngquist (4:24.23) cruised the back 300 and will be looking to be dangerous on the outside with open water this evening.  TCU senior Thor Stenfjord (4:24.83) was your only non-UT qualifier this morning taking 8th

Women’s 200IM

The Longhorns  took the top four spots in the official prelims rankings of the women’s 200 IM, led by sophomore Madisyn Cox, who swam a 1:56.16 for the top qualification spot.

Men’s 200IM

Will Licon (1:43.20) kicked off his Big 12 championships with a new meet record in the 200 IM. breaking former Longhorn Austin Surhoff’s 2010 record of 1:43.26.  Joseph Schooling (1:44.42) after an impressive night one himself touched second with fellow Longhorn’s John Martens (1:46.58) and Jared Butler (1:46.58) finishing 3rd and 4th.

It is worth noting Licon was out a half second faster than Schooling at the first 50, expect for Schooling, fresh off tying the fastest 50 butterfly split ever, to be out much faster tonight on the front half of his 200IM. West Virginia began its push for second at Big 12’s with Nate Carr (1:46.99) Christopher Brill (1:48.68) and Chase Williams (1:49.08) finishing 5th, 7th, and 8th guaranteeing, baring a disqualification, big points for the Mountaineers

Women’s 50 Freestyle

Texas versatile senior Gretchen Jaques forewent the 200 IM, in which she’s also very good, on Thursday morning to focus on the 50 free, where she was still able to take the top seed in 22.48.

Men’s 50 Freestyle

Tim Squires of West Virginia halted the sweep of top seeds by the Longhorns. Squires (19.50) topped the Texas sprint group of Tripp Cooper (19.72) John Murray (19.75), Brett Ringgold (19.89) and Aaron Gustafson (20.11) .

Fellow Mountaineer Ross Glegg (20.12) touched in 6th giving WVU two in the splash and dash final tonight. Worth noting All-American Matt Ellis touched 7th (20.18) with Keith Murphy (20.23) finishing 8th.  Looks like Ellis nearly even split the race, will have to wait until tonight to see if this morning was just a fluke or this is how the weekend will look for the junior.

Jack Conger swam exhibition touching in 19.43, which was the fastest time of the morning. After not seeing him on the 200 medley relay last night expect for the sophomore to have a spot on the 200 freestyle relay on Friday.