A pair of swim-offs and one scoring-heat scratch highlighted the midday of day 2 at the Speedo West Winter Junior Championships.
Sanpipers of Nevada 18-year-old Isabella Goldsmith tied with 16-year-old Alayna Connor of The Dolphins Swim Team of Oregon for 8th place in the 50 free. It was Goldsmith who came up with the win in her final Junior National meet, going 22.87 to Connor’s 23.22. Both were 23.08 in prelims.
Goldsmith will now take lane 8 in the A final, while Connor will lead the B heat tonight in Austin, with finals beginning at 6pm Central time.
A four-way swim-off for the final slot in the C final ended with Tule Nation Triton Sierra Jett going 23.22 for the slot. That’s a drop of two tenths from her prelims swim.
The only scratch out of the A and B finals came in the boys 500 free, where 14th-place qualifier Michael Zarian bowed out for the final. That moved Josh Artmann from the bonus final into the scoring B final heat.
In the same event, Palo Alto Stanford 16-year-old Alex Liang scratched from the C final after taking 23rd. Another 23rd-place qualifier bowed out in 200 IMer Liam O’Haimhirgin.
Stay tuned for full coverage of tonight’s finals on SwimSwam.com and @SwimSwamLive on Twitter.